


Deep Space Is My Resting Place

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Babylon 5, Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: crossovers100, Crossover, In the future everyone is bisexual, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-12
Updated: 2007-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:05:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 43,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain James Norrington didn't want command of Babylon 5, but the job grows on you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Compromises

James Norrington wasn't used to being pulled from command in the middle of a tour of duty. He wasn't used to commanding anything larger than a destroyer. And he wasn't used to taking what amounted to orders from civilians, even if they were supposedly only polite suggestions. But then, nothing on his new posting seemed to be anything like what he was used to.

Sheridan. That was someone he wasn't used to, either. He hadn't seen the man in almost fifteen--twenty? years. Twenty years. A long time to change someone. He'd been surprised when he'd heard ISN's reports about his activities, only slightly reassured when he'd picked up the Voice of the Resistance broadcasts in contrast, and completely shocked when he'd been ordered to take over command of the station, specifically requested... by Sheridan.

Specifically requested, he'd shown up... only to be met by a single, obviously overworked lieutenant, who babbled through a list of the myriad reasons the rest of the command staff was absent. And then after a brief tour to find his quarters and meet the bridge crew in C&amp;C, someone had found a dead Ranger floating outside, a sign addressing the corpse to Babylon 5 around his neck. Medlab and security were coordinating on the details, but everyone was very busy preparing for the inauguration tomorrow, and things had been so busy what with the civil war and everything... James took mental notes on it all and promised himself he'd get a decent filing system set up by Thursday if it killed half the junior lieutenants.

He sighed and glared at the reports he'd taken to lunch with him. Having to work through lunch was another thing on the list of things he wasn't used to. But until that filing system was set, he had at least three week's worth of reports to sort out, and that wasn't counting what may have been ill-attended to before Captain Ivanova got herself nearly killed--

The background sound from the Zocalo snapped off.

Startled, he looked up to see a man approaching his table. _Sauntering,_ more like. He had black hair wrapped back in a red bandanna, wore loose-fitting clothes that looked like they'd been through the last war and only hastily mended, and grinned widely as he took the seat across from him. "Captain," the man said. "Thought I ought to be introducing myself. We should talk."

James chanced a look at the silent patrons bustling around the rest of the plaza. "Should we?"

"Oh, yes, yes we should. My name's Jack Sparrow."

James narrowed his eyes. "Charmed."

Sparrow didn't seem to care about his sarcasm. "Now, this is hardly the place for a conversation, so why don't you meet me at around, oh, fifteen-hundred hours in brown seven. Some more of my people are coming."

"Oh, that's just--"

He broke off as Sparrow grinned again, and vanished. Sound returned. He looked around, but caught no sight of the other man.

He stared down at the remains of lunch, and the stack of reports. Suddenly neither seemed appetizing.

* * *

It took him half an hour to track down Mr. Allan. It wasn't that the head of security wasn't answering his link; it was that he'd answer, say "I'll be right there, Captain," and then go back to being harangued by Mr. Garibaldi. James observed this himself from the opposite side of the Zocalo before going over to intervene.

"Mr. Allan."

The other man spun around with impressive alacrity and drew himself to attention. "Captain. Sir."

Garibaldi, for his part, slouched in his civilian clothes and glared a bit. James filed it away mentally and said, "I need a security team for a meeting."

"Uhh... yessir."

There was an unvoiced 'why' before the acknowledgment. Just like there was an unvoiced fight between Interstellar Alliance black and Earthforce blue. James nodded and drew Allan aside, slightly, lowering his voice. "There is a group of rogue telepaths on station who want to meet with me. I thought that in giving them the chance to explain themselves I'd rather not get shot."

Allan grinned lopsidedly. "Understood, sir. Uh... these wouldn't happen to be some of the rogues we used in the war with the Shadows last year, would they?"

Now that was a good question. "I don't know that yet. The invitation was rather... brief."

"Yeah." Allan rubbed his nose and looked around. "Some of those guys saved our butts. I don't know how much you saw of the Shadows when they were around, but they were nasty."

"Though apparently susceptible to acts of martyrdom?"

That was a test. He wondered if Mr. Allan would pick up on it.

"Yeah, well, I guess enough thermonuclear bombs will take care of anybody." Another one of those grins. And no overt eagerness to talk about Sheridan's larger-than-life persona. "Anyway, yeah, let me get you set up. When's the meeting?"

"Hour and a half, in brown seven."

Allan nodded as he brought his link up. "Allan to Security."

A pause "Security."

"Briggs? Get team twelve together and meet our new Captain in brown seven in eighty minutes."

"Roger."

Allan dropped his link. "Okay?"

It was a little irregular, certainly unorthodox. "That will do for now. Thank you."

"Yeah, nice meeting you, sir."

Garibaldi had been edging his way over slowly, and was now in range to say, "Now if you'll excuse us, Captain, we need to make sure that nobody's shooting at President Sheridan, either."

There was an edge to 'Captain' that he didn't like, and saying 'President' before Sheridan sounded unnatural, so he was dropping the title to make a point. "See to it that doesn't happen, then," James said, and took his leave on Allan's wince and Garibaldi's continuing glare.

He had well enough time to make it to Medlab for Dr. Franklin's autopsy report. Dead Rangers, telepaths... it was not an auspicious first day. He wondered if, when John had taken over from Commander Sinclair three years ago, there had been anything like this going on.

He was thinking of him as 'John' again. Dammit. James shook his head and corrected himself--_misterpresidentsheridan_\--hard. This day was going to be a challenge enough as it was.

* * *

The Ranger was under a sheet in isolation. It occurred to James as he walked through the door and came up behind Dr. Franklin that he didn't even know the dead man's name. He resolved to find out, later, and without preamble asked, "What killed him?"

Franklin turned around enough to identify him, then went back to his pad. "Single PPG burst to the chest. The superheated helium tore through his rib cage, incinerated most of his heart, and fused the fifteenth and sixteenth vertebrae. Caught him from about six feet away at a slightly downward angle. This was accurate and professional."

James nodded. Part of his mind went into overdrive constructing scenarios, while the other part asked, "How long ago?"

"We're doing a second run of tests now, but pending that I'd say more than two days and less than a week. But maintbot records indicate the body was only floating in space for six or seven hours before it was found."

He frowned. "Meaning he was kept around for a while before he was put out for us to find. If he were killed here he would have been no reason to keep a Ranger's corpse around for several days attracting attention. He must have been killed elsewhere and brought here, ejected from an incoming transport."

Franklin nodded. "I agree."

"I suppose there's no good, fast way to figure out where he was killed." On Franklin's negative, he sighed. "Well. Considering the sign and the fact that he is a Ranger, we can pretty much assume a political statement. And given what's happening tomorrow, I have an idea of who the target is."

The doctor looked startled. "You think someone's going to try and kill Sheridan?"

James smiled grimly. "Better to plan for that and try and flush him out than ignore him and reap the consequences."

"I suppose so." Franklin shook his head. "Well, after all we went through in the last year, I can imagine there would be some sore tempers. But assassination? What's that going to accomplish?"

"Ask Brutus. He's an honorable man, right?" He raised his link. "Norrington to Allan."

"Allan here."

"Meet me in my office in ten minutes. Dr. Franklin's autopsy report has just made your job more interesting." Link down. "Thank you, Doctor. If you find anything else, let me know."

"Of course. Nice meeting you, Captain."

"And you; we'll talk more when the crisis is over." The current crisis, that was. He was starting to believe Lt. Corwin's assessment of Babylon 5 as a magnet for trouble.

* * *

It was another test to see if Allan could keep Garibaldi away from the summons. James wasn't too surprised to see that failed. "Mr. Garibaldi. You weren't exactly on the invitation."

"Sheridan's safety is my responsibility," he snapped. "I know Babylon 5 inside and out better than anyone, and I intend to use that knowledge to keep anything from happening tomorrow."

"All right," James agreed.

That sent Garibaldi's rant off its footing faster than if he'd punched him in the face. James continued, "The Ranger who was found dead outside the station this morning was killed by a professional. Franklin's autopsy indicates he was most likely killed elsewhere a couple days ago and transported here to be a message to us. Given that the situation is already violent and it's likely that the killer is on the station, I want you to find out as much as you can."

Garibaldi stared at him blankly. "And all I have to go on is this guy's a professional."

"And arrived here not too much more than six hours before the Ranger was found, and assuming he didn't kill the Ranger on board he didn't come from anywhere more than a few days away. That considerably narrows your search margin." He was getting thoroughly sick of saying 'the Ranger.' He'd find out his name and attend his service, which was probably going to be quiet, or after the inauguration. Later.

His request had brought back Garibaldi's narrow-eyed stare, but this time it was considering rather than openly hostile. Finally the former security chief nodded, rocked back on his heels, then turned and left. James turned to Allan, who was chewing on his lip. "I assume that your men will work with Mr. Garibaldi without you having to instruct them?"

"Michael trained most of them personally," Allan said, which was enough of an answer.

James let it stand and crossed to the monitor and brought up a station map. "The planning you showed me earlier was in response to a conventional assassin. What can we do against an unconventional one?"

"What makes you think this guy's unconventional?"

He shrugged. "Something about his handwriting. And the fact that he felt he had to announce his presence."

"Great. Should I put a team on President Sheridan?"

"He'd hate it," James said reflexively. "No, there's very good reason to believe this individual won't strike until the inauguration itself. It's going to be broadcast live over Stellarcom, and that's too tempting to pass up for someone trying to send a message."

"All right," Allan said, and turned to the map.

The following forty minutes were excruciatingly frustrating. Babylon 5 was just too big. There were too many hiding places, too many back doors.

"What about the air ducts?"

Allan rubbed his eyes. "Easily big enough to crawl through. We have to move enough air through here so people don't suffocate, and the maintenance guys have to be able to get in quick if something goes wrong or the air starts smelling bad. There are supposed to be motion sensors on all the frames but half of 'em don't work."

"Why is that?"

"We've just been through a war, Captain. We couldn't get parts to replace the ones that broke. Blue and green sectors are all covered, and some of red, but the rest?" He sighed.

"But the rotunda is covered."

"Yeah, and the observatory platform has airlock units in case of a blowout, so you can't get in that way."

James sighed. "At this point I'm half expecting him to run in guns blazing, just to put this planning to waste." He looked over at the clock and winced. "I have to meet those telepaths. I'll make it as quick as I can. Carry on."

A rogue telepath. Possibly many rogue telepaths. Not a situation he wanted to go into with this on his mind. He closed his eyes in the lift and tried to focus on oblivion.

* * *

James was slightly worried, upon hooking up with Mr. Briggs and the rest of his team, that he wouldn't be able to find this Sparrow character. He needn't have worried. After wandering through a couple turns on the lookout, the telepath sauntered into the open behind him.

"Captain! You came!" Sparrow gestured expansively as James turned to look at him. "And you brought friends! Oh, that's wonderful. I also brought my friends--come on out, lads and lasses, and let the nice Security gentlemen see us, hmm?"

From behind him, James heard five--ten?--people step into the corridor, and gently pressed the signal that brought out Briggs' team. Sparrow grinned at the riot-armored men and stuck his hands in the air. "I'm unarmed, gentlemen. We all are."

"But you are telepaths," James said, steadfastly refusing to turn and watch the search going on behind him.

Sparrow cocked one finger to the jaunty red scarf on his head and winked. "You got it, Captain. It's all up here."

He was wearing eyeliner, James noted. He had at least three mismatched rings, and the empty holster on his positively antique belt had badly-battered synthetic roses of an indeterminate color jammed in it. He waited, patiently, until Briggs said, "They're clear, Captain."

"Good. You can go."

The security team left, and he watched Sparrow watch him not turn around and grin wider--and his teeth were the only giveaway that this man wasn't the pure rogue he claimed to be; they were perfect, even, and white, meaning that there was some sort of fall in his past, from comfort if not from money.

"It's so nice to start bargaining from a trusting standpoint," Sparrow said, taking a couple steps forward. "And I would like to bargain with you, Captain." He pursed his lips. "Captain. That's a funny rank, isn't it? I mean, it used to mean you were in charge of a ship."

James forbade to mention the Acheron, which several times today he'd longed to return to. "Well, I'm in charge of the station."

"Seems a funny sort of ship, this station." Sparrow turned in place slowly, pointing at the walls thoughtfully, brushing his goatee. "Doesn't really go anywhere."

"We 'go' around the planet at speeds in excess of six kilometers a second," James pointed out. Then, irritated that he was getting into an astromechanics discussion with this... person, he said, "Anyway, it's more of a ship of state, given the size."

Sparrow finished his rotation with a flourish and wide, bright eyes. "Solon. Greek. Exiled to Lydia for a bit and gave advice to Creosus about some statues named Kleobus and Biton."

What the... "What did you actually want?"

Sparrow's face fell, and he did a fair impression of a puppy with his eyes. "We want a home, Captain."

He stared at Sparrow's pathetic expression for a good few seconds. "Sorry," he said. "You want..."

"Just a place to live, that's all, just a little corner where you don't have anything special planned, we'll work it out. My people and I don't need much." Sparrow did a little hop from one foot to the other and spread his hands. "We'll sing for our supper, keep away from the folk upstairs, you'll hardly know we're here. And once we find out about a planet to colonize, maybe, we'll vanish. Poof."

He blinked. "A planet?"

Sparrow grinned. "Yes, exactly. A homeland. Freedom, Captain. A free land where we're not beholden to anyone or fighting for our lives or, y'know, taxed without representation."

"And you want to use this station as... a staging area. A gathering place."

"Exactly!" He beamed. "Got it in one."

James narrowed his eyes. "A bit of a tall order, don't you think?"

Sober in an instant, Sparrow leaned forward until they were almost touching. "Yes," he said softly. "But where is it written that all our dreams must be small ones?"

The sheer intensity of that gaze was frightening. It reminded him, suddenly, that he wasn't just dealing with a man--this was a _telepath,_ no matter how crazy he seemed. "And you speak for all of them, do you?" he forced himself to ask, forced himself to not back away.

Sparrow rocked back so quickly he feared the man might overbalance, but he righted himself with a lurch. "My friends! You must meet them. Come on, I'll introduce you." He actually grabbed James' arm and turned him around to face the other telepaths before skipping over to them. There were seven of them, and they watched either him or Sparrow with amused and hopeful expressions.

"This is Sarah, she does the most wonderful birdsong impressions, sparrows, y'know, that's why I like her best--" the woman batted at Sparrow's shoulder and blushed slightly. "And David, tragic story, Psi Corps... we've all had run-ins, this is Cotton, 'e just goes by that, Psi Corps cut his tongue out." Sparrow made a face. "Awful. Lucky he can talk to us, though--man's got a wonderful talent. Can communicate with animals. He had this parrot--never mind, moving on, this is Joshamee, and _he_ was Earthforce, until they found out and kicked him out."

"It's just Josh," the man said in a gravelly baritone, then went quiet, shrugging.

Sparrow went on as though he hadn't been interrupted. "This lovely thing is Anamaria, don't cross her temper, and the beauty next to 'er is Rosaline, and we haven't tried to separate the two since they laid eyes on each other--" Anamaria hit him this time, much harder than Sarah had. "And this is Simon," Sparrow finished without pause. "He's a special one, Captain, he's got a gift like none I've seen before. Simon?"

James had taken the boy to be twelve or thirteen, but he realized with a start that he was closer to six-or-seventeen. The youth smiled shyly, and then
    
    
    there                                                        w       w       w  
                                                                   a     a     a  
    was                                                              r   r   r  
                                                                       m m m  
    a garden blooming in springtime sunlight soft breeze wet smells warm - m r  a   w  
                                                                       m m m  
    and                                                              r   r   r  
                                                                   a     a     a  
    safe                                                         w       w       w  
    

he was back in his own head, and Sparrow was grinning like a lunatic again, or that is to say, like himself. "Oh, he likes you," he exclaimed happily. "Simon's a good judge of character, you know. He remembers everything he's felt and seen since he was a wee thing and can share with anyone. He only gives those flowers to people he likes."

He'd passed some sort of test, James realized. He looked up at Simon, who was smiling shyly. "Thank you," he said.

Simon ducked his head and huddled back against Sarah, who hugged him gently. "Ah, that one doesn't talk," Sparrow said. "Not even, y'know, to us. Here." He tapped his forehead.

"He doesn't look well. Is he sick?"

"Dunno, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a telepath." James stared at him and he shrugged. "Actually, it's the other way 'round this time. Sorry for any confusion."

"We should take him to Medlab," he said, trying not to lose his concentration.

"Right. We'll do that." Sparrow turned back to him with his intense stare and said, "Think about that bargain, Captain. Give us a home here, for a while, and we'll work for our keep, be on your side... back you up. Keep the place so neat and tidy you won't know we're here unless you need us."

"I'll think about it," he said, and let the telepaths precede him to the lift.

* * *

When he dropped Sparrow and Simon off at Medlab, James stepped aside to ask Dr. Franklin about the Ranger.

"Anla'shok Mauricio Mendoza," Franklin said. "There's going to be a short memorial ceremony in the chapel this evening at 1900, before we send his body back to Minbar."

"To Minbar? Not to his family?"

Franklin shrugged. "He's a Ranger."

"Anything more on his autopsy?"

"I've narrowed down the range on his time of death a little," Franklin said. "More than that, no."

"All right." James glanced over at the telepaths. They were ignoring him, looking around Medlab with idle curiosity. "I've asked Mr. Garibaldi to look into Anla'shok Mendoza's death. Coordinate with him. I'll be in my office if you need me."

Mr. Allan was waiting for him, taking notes on a datapad. "Sorry about that," he said.

Allan looked up. "That was quick. What happened?"

"They want to start a colony, here. I'll give you a full report later." He paused. "Initially I don't think it's a good idea, but we should do a security analysis before I give them my answer."

"All right," Allan said. "Hey, you should talk to Lyta about it."

It took James a second to recognize the name. "Lyta Alexander? Station telepath?"

"Well, she's not really the station telepath, I mean, she was working for the Vorlon ambassador... she's sorta... freelance."

There was obvious emotional conflict in Allan's voice, more evidence that there was a lot of cleaning up to do in terms of station organization. "Is she Psi Corps?" James asked.

"Uhhh...." Allan winced. "That's complicated, Captain."

"Well, then, I'd better talk to her."

Mr. Allan was looking even more embarrassed, as though he wished he'd never brought up the subject in the first place. Clearing his throat, James asked, "Has Mr. Garibaldi turned up anything?"

"Nah, not yet. And I can't think of any way this guy could get into the rotunda or the ceremony that we haven't covered."

"Which only means that he probably will." James rubbed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't doubt your competence, or that of your men. Hopefully we'll catch him far ahead of time and this won't be necessary at all."

"Yeah, here's hoping." Allan's link chirped, and he raised it. "Zack Allan here."

"Sir, President Sheridan just got an anonymous message threatening his life," Lt. Corwin said.

"Ah, hell."

"He's called for an emergency meeting of the Alliance council and the command staff in his office in 20 minutes."

"All right. The Captain's here, we'll take care of this." He dropped his link, paused, and said, "He probably should have called you, first."

James shrugged. "The President's life is threatened, you call Security. It's a good instinct."

"I should talk with Garibaldi."

"Yes, the chance that we have two President-threatening madmen on station is significantly less than we just have one who likes to listen to himself talk." He let himself close his eyes, briefly. "I'm going to check in at C&amp;C before the meeting. I'll see you there."

"Captain."

It was with some consternation, then, that he entered Sheridan's office to find, not Mr. Allan, but Mr. Garibaldi, in discussion with Dr. Franklin. He hadn't met any of the others, but he recognized Delenn, of course, and the other two would be Prime Minister Mollari, and G'Kar, who wasn't an ambassador formally, but might as well be, given the confusing state of Narn affairs at the moment...

Come to think of it, Minbar had gone through a civil war, as well. It had been a hellish year for a lot of people.

Sheridan went through a round of very brief introductions, then went straight to the business at hand. "This is the message that I recieved this afternoon. The computer couldn't trace the source, and Michael couldn't get anything out of it on a first check." He turned to the viewscreen. "Play."

James listened to the message, trying to find clues of location, background... anything. The voice sounded faintly familiar, but most unaccented male voices sounded similar once they were piped through speakers.

"Well," he said when the file ended. "You can add 'human, male, and experienced with Earthforce computers' to your search criteria, Mr. Garibaldi."

Sheridan turned and stared at him. "You _knew_ about this?"

"Not this in particular," James said. "But after the late Ranger Mendoza was found this morning it was a good bet the person behind his killing was here, and after you."

Sheridan's eyes narrowed. "Don't you think it would have been wise to _tell me?"_

James shrugged. "I would have, at the end of the day. But it didn't seem particularly urgent."

"Not particularly urgent? Someone is trying to kill me."

"With all due respect," James said. "You're president, now. You're going to have to get used to it. And your inauguration--"

"We ought to postpone the ceremony," Garibaldi said.

Sheridan looked at him sharply. "Why?"

"It's too good a target. We should wait and bring in more security."

Sheridan objected, forcefully. James waited as Garibaldi attempted to argue him down, gauging the other tempers in the room. It seemed like nobody really wanted to get in the way of the argument, but everyone more or less agreed with Garibaldi. It was too dangerous, Sheridan needed to be put behind a thicker layer of guards and at the moment they didn't have the manpower.

Sheridan, one noted, still didn't like to be protected.

"If more of our so-called leaders would walk the same streets as the people who voted them in," Sheridan was arguing, getting up a good head of steam, "Live in the same houses, eat the same food, instead of hiding behind glass and steel and bodyguards, maybe we'd get better leadership and a little more concern for the future!"

There was a slightly awkward pause.

"John, that's a commendable idea," Dr. Franklin said. "But it's very dangerous."

"Is it?" Sheridan retorted. "Our new friend just said all the security in the world can't stop a lone gunman dedicated to exchange his life for the target. And he is right. So you might as well live, instead of being a prisoner."

James cleared his throat. "I'm not sure we ought to be taking an assassin's word on anything relating to your security," he pointed out.

Sheridan turned to him and sighed. "So you're against me too on this, huh?"

"On the contrary," James said. "I think we should go ahead as planned."

By now he was used to Garibaldi glaring at him, but the combined expressions of shock and outrage from the doctor, two diplomats, one prime minister and one President of the Interstellar Alliance were really something to behold. "How can you say that?" Dr. Franklin said, first to recover his voice.

"Because I believe we _can_ stop _this_ lone gunman with the proper preparation," James said, crossing the room to stand beside Sheridan at his desk. "Because postponing the inauguration will make him more likely to try when we're not ready, because postponing the inauguration makes it more likely that more than one gunman will show up, and because the political statement of not being afraid of the people on this station is worth the risk."

He looked around at the hardened expressions greeting him. "You're all friends here," he said. "That may have blinded you to the other political realities at stake." Sheridan was looking at him with an odd expression when he turned. "I vote we continue as planned, Mr. President."

Sheridan looked around, at his friends, his wife, people who really had his best interests at heart and who wanted him safe. Then he said, "I agree."

"Done, then," James said, hoping to forestall any more argument. And without looking at Garibaldi, he continued, "I'll let Mr. Allan know."

The footsteps behind him after he left could only belong to one person. Garibaldi's voice confirmed it. "Hey, wait up."

Back on the Acheron, he would have been off duty by now. "I have things to do, Mr. Garibaldi."

"Take five for this. What the hell was that back there?"

_"That,"_ James said acidly, "was a meeting of the Alliance advisory council and the Babylon 5 command staff. Neither of which is a category into which you fall. By all rights you shouldn't have been there."

"Look, Sheridan's the kind of guy who looks for something to challenge him," Garibaldi said, ignoring his point. "Sometimes I think he's a martyr in training. Great motives, lousy ending, in case you missed the whole Joan of Arc story. Now in a situation like this, we have to protect him against himself."

James sighed shortly. "If you want to take responsibility for his protection, perhaps you ought to acquire some authorization to go with it. Go through channels to get your old job back, or let Mr. Allan at it and keep out of the way."

"Look, dammit," Garibaldi said, "I was here a hell of a long time before you ever showed up."

"Yes, you were," James said. "And then you left."

You stabbed John in the back, he thought, but didn't say.

He took a breath. "I think that's all that needs to be said."

Garibaldi stared after him as he passed by, trying to put it out of mind. He'd have Mr. Allan coordinate the manhunt. He'd see Ms. Alexander about a telepath's view on telepaths. He'd see the Ranger into the final blackness.

Then he'd see if he could sleep, tonight.

* * *

Lyta Alexander turned out to be easy to recognize from a photograph, even from a traditionally terrible identification photograph. She was eating at the Zocalo's largest cafe, alone, gloves neatly placed next to her silverware and Psi Corps pin prominent on her lapel. Her hair was done up in a complicated knot at the back of her neck, businesslike. Just like any other commercial telepath rated P5.

James had a small file on Lyta Alexander. It included the entries, _'Assigned to Babylon 5 as station commercial telepath, 2257. Recalled, 2257. Listed as rogue telepath, 2259. Returned to Babylon 5 as personal assistant to Ambassador Kosh, 2260.'_

Rogue telepaths and representatives of foreign powers don't show up wearing the badge and the gloves of Psi Corps. Whatever had Mr. Allan wincing would have to eventually be sorted out, if the station's command staff was to be forced back into something resembling an Earthforce organizational structure. But not, he promised himself, on the first day.

She looked up and spotted him as he approached; telepaths were hard to sneak up on. "Miss Alexander?" he asked rhetorically. "I'm Captain Norrington. May I join you?"

"Oh, yes, Captain. It's nice to finally meet you." She gestured at the seat in front of her, then dismissively at her plate of noodles. "Don't mind me, I just _have_ to eat something. It's been a long day."

"I sympathize; I've had a bit of a long day myself."

She nodded, and he got the feeling he was being... not scanned, but _observed._ "Honestly? I think this place attracts trouble. You know, the first day I was ever here, I got nearly involved in a hostage incident, propositioned by Ambassador G'Kar, involved as a witness to the attempted assassination of Ambassador Kosh... and then I got shot at by my doppelganger. _That_ was a bad day."

"You've had an interesting tenure here. If I may ask, what _is_ your current relationship with Psi Corps?"

Lyta paused with a forkful of noodles in midair, then slowly lowered the utensil back to her plate. "It's... complicated."

"Funny, that's exactly what Mr. Allan said." She still wasn't looking up. "From what I've read in the station logs, Babylon 5 hasn't had much luck with Psi Corps, and you were unafilliated for a long time. But you are wearing the badge, so I'm assuming there's some sort of connection."

She looked up, stared him straight in the eye, and said, "It's complicated."

No love lost there.

"All right. The particulars don't concern me all that much, except I've come to you for advice on telepaths."

Lyta lifted an eyebrow. "Telepaths? Not telepathy?"

"Rogue telepaths, specifically."

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

He leaned forward and lowered his voice a bit. "I have been approached by the leader of a group of rogue telepaths who wish to start a colony on this station."

"Let them," she said instantly.

James stared at her numbly while she took another bite of noodles. "That was decisive."

She nodded. "There are many good reasons to want to leave Psi Corps," she said after swallowing. "They do experiments on telepaths. Breeding programs. Forced marriages. Psychic surgery. Drug regimes. Brain implants. And if you don't see things their way, they're within their rights to imprison you or stick you on sleepers, because it's the Corps' way or the highway."

"You're saying I should treat these people as refugees."

Lyta gave him another stern look. "They are refugees."

He thought that over as she went back to eating. After a minute, he asked, "What will happen, if there's a war between telepaths and the rest of us?"

Her look this time was full of regret. "Terrible things, Captain. Terrible things."

* * *

Allan called him at 1840. "Michael's got something on the voiceprint," he said. Then he frowned, slightly. "Something up, Captain?"

James looked down at his dress greys, back at Allen's expression. "Ranger Mendoza's memorial in twenty minutes."

"Ahh." He winced. "Right. He wasn't one of the Rangers who came through here a lot; I never really met him."

James shrugged, adjusted his cuffs again. "It's my first day."

Allan nodded, awkwardly, then cleared his throat and started over. "Anyway, Michael thinks he's ID'ed the guy. He got a really good voicematch and a visual from his docking ID, which was faked but still had his picture."

"Who is it?"

"His name's John Clemens. That used to be Major Clemens when he was in Earthforce."

James froze. John Clemens. No wonder that voice sounded familiar... "Go on."

"He was running the Beta 7 prison system under Clark. Guy carried out all the orders for torture and execution of dissidents without blinking, and when we gave Clark the boot, well, he didn't stick around for a war crimes trial."

James sighed. "I knew him," he admitted. "We served on the Ajax together three years ago. This is a surprise, but I suppose that's what they always say about the quiet ones."

"I'm sorry, Captain."

He shook his head. "This is bad news. Clemens was good at what he did, and what he did was infiltration. He was the only Earthforce infiltrator to come back from the Earth-Minbari war."

"Jeez. So, should we try and flush him out?"

After a second he said, "Yes, but carefully. If we spook him, Sheridan's life will be in danger immediately."

"Understood."

The screen winked off. James sighed, fidgeted with the braiding on his cuffs again, and left for the chapel.

He was saluted by two alert security guards on his way in, both Narns. He was relieved to see them. He didn't think Clemens was going to show, not tonight, but...

John and--_MisterPresidentSheridan_ and Ambassador Delenn were already there, talking with a man in monk's robes--possibly even a monk, he pointed out to himself--and another Minbari he didn't immediately recognize.

Sheridan gestured him over. "Captain Norrington. This is Brother Theo, head of his order on the station. He and Mr. Lennier will be conducting the ceremony."

"Hello," James said.

His confusion must have shown, because Lennier said, "Anla'shok Mendoza was raised Catholic, but training in the Rangers includes training in Minbari religion as well. We wished to honor both sides of his spiritual upbringing."

Mr. Garibaldi appeared at the door. Sheridan and Delenn excused themselves to go speak with him. Moments later, Lennier also bowed and left to finish preparations, leaving James alone with Brother Theo.

"It seems strange," he said, "that I didn't know him. I never even met him."

"And yet you came," Theo said.

"It's my first day here." He sighed. "It shouldn't have started in death."

"Try not to take it as an omen," Theo advised. "His life was given in service to a cause he believed in. The security of this station's dream, and the safety of the people on it."

James sighed, suddenly weary. "It's just these past few years have seen an awful lot of sacrifice. One wonders if it'll be worth it, in the end."

Brother Theo eyed him speculatively. "Are you yourself a religious man, Captain?"

"Arisia branch Anglican," he answered automatically. Then that taste in his mouth like ashes and he thought about correcting himself and decided not to and just tried to not say anything.

"I'm sorry," Theo said after a pause.

James nodded, and shoved his hands into his pockets, because there wasn't anything else he could say.

"It's not a test, Captain."

He looked back at Theo. "Sorry?"

"God is not testing you with this. There is no passing or failure. It just is. It is tragic, but it is not meant to temper you or plumb your depths of character. God knows your character. Do not think He expects more of you than you can give."

James was having trouble swallowing. He nodded, shortly, was relived when Brother Theo let the subject drop.

Garibaldi didn't stay for the ceremony. It was brief; Delenn spoke, then another Ranger who had trained with Mendoza, and then Theo and Lennier traded readings. James could catch some of the Minbari, but for the most part he let the words roll over him.

He hoped he wasn't sending Sheridan to his death.

That was, he admitted, why he was really here. He wanted to promise this Ranger, who he had never met, that his death wasn't in vain. He wanted to stare that death in the face. He wanted to think about what would happen if things went wrong and it was Sheridan lying there tomorrow. Would life go on, because he had died while dedicating himself to his dream?

The service ended. James slipped away as quickly as he could, hoping against hope that the night would remain quiet enough to sleep.

* * *

The inauguration was over by noon. Moments of panic after hours of mind-numbing preparation.

James had watched from C&amp;C, wanting an overview of the entire process and to be patched in to all the information he could get his hands on. The live stellarcom feed was on one console, and his desk was doubling as a rotation through security cameras. He was still unable to find Clemens before the telepath boy, Simon, stumbled through the doors and projected--James could only assume he projected something about Clemens, because in the next instant the Gaim ambassador pulled a concealed weapon and fired.

One of the men in security took the hit. James watched, two miles removed, cursing as civilians ducked and screamed and Security returned fire. Clemens-as-Gaim got off another round before his weapon arm was hit; he went the next available route and grabbed a hostage.

An all-points bulletin was already up on the system. Clemens backed out of the room with the hostage until he was out of direct sight, then dropped her and started running.

James watched him until he ducked into a maintenance hatch into a cameraless zone. Security had men already covering the area. Sheridan and Allan were relocating the VIPs to the observatory platform for the rest of the ceremony.

Foolish, brave. James sighed in relief. Clemens wasn't going to get another shot. He raised Allan on the link.

"Zack Allan, go."

"Mr. Allan. What's your situation?"

"We've got the one down, doc thinks he'll be okay; we're moving him to medlab. The telepath kid is dead."

"Mr. Clemens has a lot to answer for."

"Yes, sir. We'll get him."

"I'm certain of that." He closed the link and went back to staring at the securecams, waiting for Clemens to come out into the open. The budget shortfalls plaguing the station since its opening and the war had taken their toll on the network, but surely Clemens couldn't have mapped the location of all the black spots...

He stopped his search on an exterior view, stared as the Cobra Bays swept by. "Lieutenant, did we authorize a Starfury launch?"

"Uh," Corwin said, "No, sir. No launch authorized, no launch recorded. Why?"

"Because one just occurred, our authorization or not." He watched as the 'fury glided around the station, synching with rotation. "Damn! That's Clemens. Can we train the defense grid on him?"

Corwin shook his head. "Not at that range. He's too close."

An alert sounded for a Starfury launch request. Corwin froze, then reached for the toggle. "Who is this?"

"It's Garibaldi. I'm going after him."

Corwin looked up for confirmation. A dozen things raced through James' head. _How did you know where he was going? Why are you trying this grandstanding? I don't trust you with a sharp spoon, much less a Starfury. Your license for operating this station's fightercraft has been revoked._

What he said was "Godspeed." Because the truth was, Garibaldi was at worst the third best fighter pilot on the station, after himself and Sheridan, and at the moment their only option.

Garibaldi's Starfury crept closer to Clemens', like a stalking cat. James listened to Clemens' threats with half an ear and watched the slow approach of the fightercraft. _Come on... come on..._

With a burst of blue flame, Garibaldi's 'fury ripped free of the station's orbit, pulling Clemens along. "Tracking, five-by-five!" Corwin exclaimed.

The grapple for a Starfury was meant to tow damaged or otherwise unpowered spacecraft. It was not designed to hold another full-powered Starfury fighting actively to disengage. There was a scattering of metal and the claw of Garibaldi's grapple was no longer attached to Clemens' Starury. A second after that, the defense grid made short work of the ship, and by extension, John Clemens.

James collapsed back into his chair. On the other monitor, he could hear the Stellarcom broadcast of the ceremony, still running.

"Do you want to be President?" That was G'Kar.

"Yes." A slightly surprised Sheridan.

"Put your hand on the book and say 'I do.'"

"I do."

"Fine. Done. Let's eat."

And that, James supposed, was the new Interstellar Alliance.

A few hours later, he and Sheridan were glaring at each other across Sheridan's desk.

"The arrangement, as I understood it," James said angrily, "Was that I was to be responsible for all decisions that affected the administration and safety of this station."

"This was a political decision."

_He'd asked Sparrow to come to his office. He'd expressed his condolences for the death of Simon. He'd given his answer._

_Sparrow had taken the news with surprising equanimity. "You don't think we're worth putting your neck out for."_

_"I think that I can't knowingly harbor criminals under Earth law while I'm serving Earthforce."_

_"That's what I said."_

_"No. If it were just me, just this station? Yes, we could take you. But I am an officer of Earthforce. Bound by duty to uphold the laws of Earth Alliance. How can I do my duty if I'm letting you stay here, if I'm a willing accomplice in your escape from Psi Corps?" He shook his head. "No. You may leave without interference. But you cannot stay."_

He sighed and had to force himself to stay still, to not stand and pace. "The decision had already been made. You can't just take any order of mine you don't like, claim it's a political situation, and reverse it. This is a political station, Mr. President. It always has been. And I represent Earth Alliance's part in that."

"I can see where you'd be concerned--"

"Concerned? I'm furious. You promised me authority."

Sheridan sat back in his chair and sighed. After a long pause he said, "You're right."

James took a moment to get his anger under control. "Thank you."

"But the telepaths have to stay."

It was his turn to sigh. "You'll reap the whirlwind on that one."

"What will you do if the Psi Corps comes looking for them?"

That answer was as easy as it was painful. "My duty to the station, and to Earthforce."

Sheridan stared at him. "I'm surprised at the order that came in."

He smiled. "That's the way it always is, John," he said. "And we're fools if we pretend otherwise."


	2. Reflections on Leaving

It was becoming abundantly clear to Lennier that things had irrevocably changed onboard Babylon 5, that surface adaptations to the new Alliance, the new command staff, would no longer be sufficient. And as he made his rounds, conducted Delenn's business as he had always done, he realized that he needed to change, as well. Delenn...

He must change how he was thinking about Delenn, or he would go mad.

He distracted himself, first; threw himself into the details. (This was how the conversation with Mr. Allan began. They were discussing the possible necessity for food quarantines because of an increase in the number of parasites, and the possible consequences to trade.)

"Is the new captain settling in?" he asked, having only met the man once, and only briefly at that.

"Yeeeeah," Zack said, stretching out the syllables in an intensely human manner of qualifying a statement with disapproval or reluctance. "He's settling, and it's been a rough few days, I can tell you. The guy's thorough."

"Is that not an admirable quality in senior officers?"

"Yeah, but... everything's Earthforce manual with this guy. We had to rewrite the book a few times to make B-five work in the first place, and now he's up here questioning every procedure we've hashed together, and getting everyone to give him these ungodly detailed reports on _why_ we deviate from SOP. And that's not all." Zack shook his head. "I mean, he's been on what, five days? And two of them the president was getting shot at and he was busy with _that._ But we've had like six meetings with the president and the quartermaster's office and Ms. Connally to figure out how the hell we're all getting _paid."_

Lennier frowned. "Considering some of the previous arguments about the subject I have been witness to, I would think his enthusiasm would be appreciated."

"Ah, hell, I wanna know I get my paycheck, sure. And he hates these meetings, y'know," Zack's face was expressive in his grimaces. "He's sitting there glowering in the corner and listening to all this crap, and still he's in there going through these lists of what Earthforce will pay for and what docking fees are bringing in. And how salary negotiations are gonna work for people who are in Earthforce and people who are just working for the Alliance. You know, like me."

He considered this. "You did not wish to rejoin Earthforce?"

Zack grinned. "Nah. I like this uniform better than my old one, anyway. Even if it still itches."

"But Captain Norrington has to work with you, anyway. He wants to know that the structure will hold."

"Yeah, I'm not really ragging on him, but--it's just _weird,_ is all. It's almost like he's trying to prove he cares as much about this place as Sheridan does."

Lennier hesitated before asking, "I understand he had an altercation with Mr. Garibaldi..."

"Yeah, well, you know." Zack shrugged. "Garibaldi doesn't trust anybody. I think all the re-ordering's got him paranoid that he won't be able to find anything."

The new captain may have served as a better distraction if he hadn't met him again, a perfectly normal piece of business; relations between Minbar and Earth had of course been strained over the last year, they wished to establish better ties, the Alliance would facilitate but permanent ambassadorial stations should be reestablished as soon as possible...

"I'll get back to you as soon as I can," Norrington said, placing the data pad aside. "You know, I would like to talk to you about the station, some time when you're free. The president has told me you've been invaluable in keeping things together here over the last couple of years."

Something caught in his chest. "Sheridan is... too generous with his praise."

Norrington quirked an eyebrow, one of the stranger human expressions he'd worked hard at memorizing. "Not since I've known him."

The thing in his chest was pressing, constricting, and he found himself admitting, "In any case, I do not think I shall be here much longer."

Saying it out loud made the half-formed resolution real. He fought to stop from sighing in relief as Norrington frowned and said, "That comes as a surprise."

The smile was forced, but he did not even have to skirt a lie when he said, "I need to return to Minbar. It's personal business I must attend to."

He allowed himself a few minutes to relax each day at the cafe in the Zocalo. He was surprised when Norrington sat down next to him, many hours after their earlier meeting.

"I'm sorry if I was treading on a personal subject, earlier," he said. "But if something here is bothering you enough to make you leave, I'm concerned about it."

Lennier looked at him, curious. "Why?"

"Because from everything I've heard, you've been one of the centers of order that kept this station together through the last few years. Without you, it's quite possible that Babylon Five would have fallen."

Lennier laughed. "Humans have such a different view of personal responsibility. Mine is to serve; I am part of the whole. Minbari do not seek personal glory the way humans do."

"Say 'recognition,' instead," Norrington said. "And Minbari seem to have two minds about the subject. Ask any Minbari and they say the whole is more important than any individual, and yet the cults of personality that have sprung up around Valen, Angiri, Dukhat, Branmer, Neroon, Delenn... legends."

"Well." Lennier smiled tightly. "I am no legend."

"Perhaps not. But you are part of this station... and therefore if your relationship with Sheridan and Delenn has deteriorated to the point where you feel you have to leave, I can at least offer a drink." He paused as Lennier turned to stare at him. His face was perfectly serious. "Non-alcoholic, of course."

Lennier couldn't help gaping. Just a bit. "How did you..."

"Neither of them have an inkling that you've made up your mind to leave."

"I haven't told them."

"Which means the problem lies in a very specific direction."

The pressure in his chest was back. He tried to laugh it off but it sounded... wrong. "We must be very easy for humans to read, in some respects. No Minbari would admit a social tangle existed without the proper rituals being observed."

"So what will you do?"

"I have to leave." He looked, sharply, at the captain, who was nodding. "You're not going to try to talk me out of it?"

Norrington smiled, though it was more like a wince. "I was considering it. But it would be the worst kind of hypocrisy."

Lennier watched him for a moment, then said, "There are too many people on this station for you to be concerned with all of us."

"Yes, well." He sighed. "People are the causes of order, or chaos; it's people who hold down rules or start wars. We are the cause of death because we carry the shade of it, and if we take the time to listen, first, before the breach, we may just cause a little peace."

He noticed Lennier staring and shook his head. "Listen to me, I'm getting philosophical. I apologize. And I'll be sorry to see you go."

Lennier was used to insincere politeness from humans by now, so he was startled when he realized Norrington actually meant it. "Thank you." Recklessness, another human trait he'd learned, made him ask, "Captain... what did you do, when you... made up your mind to leave?"

Norrington raised his eyebrows. "I left. Joined Earthforce."

"And did it... work?"

"No." An amused glance. "Though maybe Minbari are better at that, too?"

Lennier wanted to smile, but couldn't manage it. "No. Somehow, I don't think so."


	3. Local Legends

"Michael, I'd hardly say he's _terroizing_ the station."

Michael Garibaldi glowered over his coffee without answering. Stephen sighed and shook his head. "Look, John gave a whole list of reasons why he was bringing in someone from Earthforce. And I agree with them. So what's the problem?"

"I just don't trust him," Michael said.

Stephen stabbed at his breakfast. "You don't trust anyone."

"No. And I'm right, this time."

"Y'know," Stephen mused, "as much as I always hated Earthforce discipline growing up, I have to say command meetings are going even smoother than they did before the War. And that's saying something."

"He's got some sort of hold on Sheridan that I don't understand. He comes in here expecting to upend everything we've been building for five years and make it conform to some sort of Earthforce blueprint. Now call me crazy," he held up his hands, "but I think there's something wrong with that."

Stephen smirked. "You're crazy."

"Is that your medical opinion, doctor?"

"Mmmm, no, my medical opinion is that you're cranky until you finish your coffee."

"If you call this garbage coffee." Michael grimaced and shook his head. "The tightass probably had Ivanova's coffee plants replaced, too."

Stephen stared. "Susan had coffee plants?"

"Yeah, a quarter-planter in hydroponics. Actually, they used to be Laurel Takashima's, but I guess she didn't want them to go to waste."

"Real coffee. Goddamn." Stephen looked forlornly at the brown substance in his cup. "And she never shared."

"Look at it this way," Michael said. "If that was Susan _with_ coffee, would you have wanted her to have had less?"

Stephen was still chuckling as he left the mess and headed to Medlab. It occurred to him, as he entered the lab, that he hadn't seen Captain Norrington anywhere at breakfast.

It was a shock to find him in Medlab, staring at the cryogenic suspension bank.

Stephen cleared his throat as he came through the door. Norrington looked up briefly, nodded, then went back to looking at... well, one particular capsule, and Stephen realized with a chill that he knew exactly which one it was.

"Tell me about him," Norrington asked.

Stephen edged closer until he could read the plaque. _SUBJECT: Marcus Cole. Designation: Ranger. Status: Deceased. Comments: Indefinite Hold in the event of new resuscitation technology._ Underneath, in bold lettering, _**REQUESTED BY: CMDR. S. IVANOVA.**_

"About Marcus?" Stephen said, attempting to sort his thoughts out.

Norrington nodded. "I've heard his name come up once in a while," he said. "But I never got anything like a full story. Or even a full name."

"Well..." Stephen searched his mouth for words that could explain exactly what people felt when they thought of Marcus. Marcus-never-Marcus-Cole, Marcus-only-occasionally-Ranger-Cole, Marcus-and-Ivanova... "He was a Ranger," was what he finally said.

"Ah." Norrington looked at him, smirked. "And that precludes any other identities he might have had, does it?"

Stephen shrugged. "It was really... he was a Ranger. That was Marcus."

"And Captain Ivanova?"

It was still strange to hear Susan's new rank, somehow. "He saved her life."

"How so?"

"When she was injured in the fight with Clark's new destroyers, there wasn't anything... we weren't going to be able to save her. But Marcus, he..." he shook his head, remembering. "He hacked into my files and found a device that we discovered, a healing machine. It somehow transfers life energy from one person to another."

Norrington looked skeptical.

"It works... but for something as bad as Susan's injuries, it's a terminal transfer."

"Ahhh," Norrington said. He looked back at the plaque. "So he literally gave his life for her."

"Yeah."

"Heroic. Romantic. Astoundingly unlike him."

Stephen nodded, then froze. "Unlike him?"

"Yes, it's much more something his brother would have done."

Stephen found himself swallowing hard. "You knew him?"

"A very long time ago. Back on Arisia."

Arisia had been destroyed by the Shadows in 2259. Marcus' brother had died in the attack. Marcus went to join the Rangers to finish his brother's work. "I'm sorry. I didn't..."

"Quite understandable. My permanent address is in Geneva." He smiled again, and this time Stephen was able to decode it as a reflex of pain. "Marcus and I were... well, friendly. Until I decided to join Earthforce, I suppose. I don't think he ever really forgave me."

"He was never too big on traditional authority."

Norrington laughed. "I need to learn more about the Rangers, I see." Off Stephen's look, he explained, "Back on Arisia, Marcus' family _was_ traditional authority."

"Oh."

"Well," Norrington said meditatively, resting his hand briefly on the capsule. "Well."

Stephen cleared his throat. "If you need me for anything, Captain..."

"No, thank you, doctor," Norrington said. "I'll see you at the command staff meeting at 0900."

"Right."

The captain wasn't one to linger on goodbyes. A minute or so after Stephen left the cryo room, Norrington was passing him on his way out the door. He didn't look much like the new terror of the B5 command staff. He looked like someone late for an appointment, except for the look in his eyes like it was years too late anyway.

"Captains shouldn't be allowed to think they can play God," he muttered.

"And why not?" Dr. Hobbs said, startling him.

He looked up. She was smirking. He gave her a smile and said, "Because that's our job. All right, what do we have for today?"


	4. Shipshape

Michael Garibaldi had to admit, as much as he didn't like telepaths, this bunch had straightened up their corner of Downbelow. It was shipshape. The floors were clean, there were new partitions--out of plasteel, God knew where the teeps had found it or the welding torch--and as he came around the corner three of them were silently setting up a platform at about head level, a dreadlocked woman weilding a welder with vigor as a barrel-chested man and a slim blonde woman watched from two points below. As he stepped around the corner, all three of them paused long enough to give him a dirty look before going back to the business at hand.

Michael cleared his throat. "I need to speak to a guy named Sparrow, I hear he's in charge around here."

"No ye don't," the man said.

He blinked in surprise. "Yes, actually, I do."

The man heaved a sigh and turned to look at him again. The blonde shifted position behind him slightly as he did so. "No, y'don't. The answer'll be th'same whether or not ye speak to 'im, so I'm savin' you the trouble."

"Look, mister..."

"Gibbs. It was _Sergeant_ Gibbs, hundred-and-fourteenth infantry, durin' th' War, but they decided that as a teep I needed t' be put into a box." He grimaced and crossed large arms over his large chest. "So I know how t' talk to Earthforce, Mr. Head-of-Covert-Operations Garibaldi, and I'm telling you, you're wastin' yer time."

"You haven't even heard what I'm going to ask you."

Gibbs sighed. "You ever talk to a telepath before, boy?"

Michael couldn't decide if he was angrier about being scanned or about being called 'boy.' "Now you listen--"

"Now, what's all this commotion, then?"

The man who swaggered out of the back was almost exactly how Norrington had described him. Almost; somewhere he'd managed to find a huge black tricorner hat and had jammed that on over his bandanna. Michael glared as he approached and said, "I don't like being scanned without permission."

"Scanning?" Sparrow jerked up straight and startled, then gave the trio a look. Gibbs grunted and went back to watching the welding. "Oh, we'd never do anything like that. Not polite."

"He just said--"

"Listen. Mister Garibaldi." Sparrow reached out and rested a hand on his arm, just long enough for a breath. "Have you ever heard a telepath talk about what it's like? Listening? The voices?" Sparrow's fingers wibbled in the air a moment.

He remembered, a long time ago, a conversation Talia had had in the lift with a businessman; he'd been too busy admiring her posterior to really pay attention, but hey, who wouldn't have in that position? "Yeah, stuff like strong emotion is hard to block."

"Yes. Block." Sparrow's hands were darting, fluttering in front of his face. "Blocks. They're hard, mate. They're a pain in the arse."

"But... they keep you from scanning people."

"No, no, that's not what a scan _is._ You were in the infantry in the Earth-Minbari war, hmm?"

Michael wondered what the hell that had to do with anything. "Yes."

"You had helmets, right?"

He shook his head. "Yeah, we had helmets. Hated them. Half the time we wouldn't wear them."

Sparrow grinned. "Ah-ha! And why was that?"

"They messed up your hearing. Made it easier to accidentally run into a Minbari patrol or an ambush."

"Exactly." Sparrow's smile was creepily large on his face. "Now, the helmet keeps nasty things like bullets out of your head, but it actually makes it harder to stay alive. We live dangerously down here, Mr. Garibaldi. No helmets."

Abruptly, Sparrow stopped smiling. "And the answer," he said, "is no."

"You didn't even let me--"

"Oh, you've been thinking your bloody question all the way up the corridor. Bouncing off the walls, into our heads, over and over again--if you were a telepath, mate, you'd know how incredibly boring that is, planning out arguments, conversations, counterarguments, how you weren't going to be thrown off by my..." he waved his hands in Michael's face, showing off exceptionally dirty fingernails. "... act."

Michael glared at this... telepathic clown. "You told both Norrington and Sheridan that you wanted to work."

"We are working!" The grin was back, and he waved at the platform, where the woman had finished with the welding torch and was passing out sanding blocks. "Aren't we, loves? And we'll work. But if we take your so-called government job we're putting our lives back in your hands, and you'll start regulating us. Limits and blocks and all sorts of barriers. You want to be the good guys, but..." He shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. No, no, no, no, no. Now go on back and work on your other options."

Sparrow turned around and sauntered back the way he had came. Michael watched him go, then looked over at the three on the platform. They kept their heads turned to their work, this time, sanding down the weld in the plasteel with tinny scraping noises that echoed in the corridor as he walked away.


	5. Signed and Sealed

"So are you going to sign it?"

James Norington glanced up over the top of the scroll and smirked at Sheridan's expression. "I don't actually have independent ambassadorial status, you know. I have to get everything I sign confirmed." He looked back at the text. "This is very poetic. My compliments to G'Kar."

"I've been asking you about this for a week!"

"Of course you have. And I've been sending inquiries to Senator Jayachandran for almost as long. You're lucky she got back to me today." He pulled a pen off his desk and neatly inked his signature at the bottom of the page.

Sheridan stared at him for a second, then sighed. "Thank you."

"No problem." James rolled the scroll up and handed it back. "You seem a bit distressed over this whole thing."

"Well..." Sheridan sighed, then sank into a chair. "It's going harder than I thought. Most of the ambassadors don't want to sign the Declaration on grounds that we're legislating morality."

"The horror. That was exactly Senator Jayachandran's first objection, if I recall."

"Oh?" Sheridan perked up. "What did you say to convince her?"

"That agreeing to uphold principles we were already upholding would gain back some of our credit in the interstellar community, and the administration that lost us artificial gravity would be reviled for the rest of history."

"Heh," Sheridan said. "The carrot and the stick."

"Precisely."

Sheridan studied him for a few moments. "How are you holding up?" he finally asked.

"It's been an interesting few weeks," James admitted. After a second's hesitation, he asked, "Was your first week as eventful as mine?"

"Oh, sure," Sheridan said. "I got on station to find my head of security in a coma, raving about a conspiracy; Ambassador G'Kar run off to parts unknown looking for the Shadows, Ambassador Delenn in a cocoon, and a Minbari war cruiser bearing down on us."

James blinked a couple times. "Well. Sounds exciting." He frowned. "Mr. Garibaldi is capable of raving about conspiracies while unconscious?"

Sheridan grinned. "Sometimes he surprises even me."

"Well." James nodded. "Good luck with the rest of them."

"Hm?" Sheridan looked down at the scroll in his hand. "Right. Thank you, Captain."

James watched him go, then pinched the bridge of his nose to try and stave off a headache. It didn't work. Maybe he could challenge Mr. Garibaldi to a duel. He had ancestors in the British Royal Navy; he might be able to get away with it on grounds of cultural identity.

... No, probably not. Nice image, though.

He sighed. Then he picked up the data pad full of regulations he'd been hashing out over the last weeks. Sooner rather than later, he'd have to figure out how to promote someone, if only to accomplish one thing that most everyone on the station would approve of.


	6. Looking In

The corridor was quiet as Lyta approached. She could see the minds of the telepaths ahead, tiny sparks in the darkness. One by one, they came to hover, peek, then scurry away, until there was just one, hanging about five feet up, around the corner.

She craned her neck up as she stepped around the corner and saw him, sitting crosslegged on the platform she'd earlier seen in Michael's mind. He had his arms out, wrists laying on his knees and long fingers dangling; his head was cocked to one side and he studied her for a long moment before saying, "You're an odd one, love."

That was not what she was expecting. "Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" Sparrow reached up and grabbed one of the supports for his platform, expertly hoisting himself to his feet, then sliding down the pole to land in front of her. "And why is a lovely lass like you shooting down the gentle inquiries of half a dozen friendly telepaths who only want a chat?"

She had to take a second to figure out what he was talking about. "I like my blocks. I don't let anyone in."

"Pity." He frowned at her. "Must be a bit lonely, that."

She took a deep breath and tried to regain her equilibrium. "Mr. Garibaldi--"

"How _is_ Mr. Garibaldi?" Sparrow grinned broadly. "He seemed a bit discomfited when he came to visit earlier. Lunch not sitting well, I expect."

"He wanted me to ask you to reconsider your answer."

"And why did you say yes?"

"Why did you say no?"

He smirked. "Because unlike you, I don't follow the snap of the fingers of any mundane who gets an idea they're in charge."

She... couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe he'd just said that. "I do not..."

"He told you that I gave him the brushoff, yes?"

Lyta took a deep breath. "Yes. He told me."

"So what convinced you to try and change my mind?"

"He's my friend."

Sparrow frowned and cocked his head. "Some friend."

She reflected that his assessment was pretty accurate.

"D'you have any friends that don't ask you inconvenient favors all the time?"

Lyta glared at him. "That is none of your business."

"Well." Sparrow grinned. "If you ever need some friends to just... talk with, you're always welcome here. Even if you don't let down those blocks." He pointed at her forehead.

"One telepath to another, hmm?"

"More or less." He tugged the brim of his hat briefly, then swiveled around and started to saunter back into the compound.

"Wait!"

He swivelled back, eyebrow raised.

She gestured helplessly. "Are you even going to consider it?"

Sparrow smiled and touched the tips of his index fingers together. "Why do you want me to agree?"

"You weren't here during the Shadow War." His eyebrow went back up at her words. "You didn't see how bad it got. Sheridan may not be a telepath... but he's the best chance we have to make things work."

"So you believe in him, then."

"I... don't believe he's the second coming, like some people do," she said. "But I believe in the Alliance. I think he and Delenn can pull it off."

He pressed his palms together, smiling, and bowed to her. "For you," he said, "for _you,_ mind, I'll do it. I'll send Anamaria and Cotton; they're well-trained, I'm sure they'll work just fine."

"Thank you," she said.

"One more thing," he said as she turned to leave. She looked back as he beckoned with slender fingers. "Drop your shields a moment, love. You're going to want to see all of this."

She looked into his eyes and slowly let herself _listen._ And for just a moment, before she was shown the shadows from the mind of the Drazi ambassador, she caught sight of a fractured brightness behind Jack's eyes, a dazzling broken reflection that stayed in the corner of her eye as she turned and ran for the transport tube out to Sheridan's office.


	7. Looking On

A man with gray sideburns and dark hair tied at the nape of his neck was on the platform when Lyta returned, leaning against the railing and watching her approach visually and with a gentle tracking scan. "G'wan then," he said gruffly when she stopped, and smiled at her. "You're always welcome, miss."

"Thank you," she said, smiling back hesitantly.

The area beyond had been divided and subdivided; there were a few people clustered around a camping stove making food in one room, an energetic game of poker was happening in another, and a third had racks of bunk beds set up, almost half of which were occupied.

Nowhere was there verbal speech. The other teeps communicated without shields, in a perceptible hum of p-speak, occasionally punctuated with verbal hums or sighs or laughter. She wondered, briefly, how the poker game was able to work, decided it wasn't worth worrying about. Jack's colony had grown, and seemed to be thriving despite the conditions of downbelow.

Jack himself, however, was nowhere to be found. Until a clattering noise from outside caught everyone's attention, the hum of telepathic sense now focused on the main doorway, through which swaggered Jack Sparrow followed by two other teeps pushing a cart laden with boxy light arrays, tubs of soil mix, and plastic bags full of greenery.

"Lyta!" he exclaimed upon seeing her, rushing ahead of his fellows. The other telepaths descended upon the cart and moved it toward an unoccupied room. "Lovely, lonely Lyta. Welcome back."

She eyed the passing mass. "You were stealing from hydroponics?"

Jack looked affronted. "Borrowing. Borrowing from hydroponics."

"What about the equipment?"

"Self-sufficiency! It's the soul of any good community." He grinned and took her arm, steering her toward a nook filled with cushions and a damaged leather couch. "And I happened to find out from a lovely space angel that Captain Norrington has wrangled government funding to replace anything gone missing from the hydroponics section over the last year. This batch has gone straight onto that list."

She couldn't help smiling as he sat her down. "And so it's not really stealing."

"Only from Earthforce, love." He perched on the armrest, as though sitting would lose him too much potential energy.

"And the plants?"

"We took clippings. Reginald, wonderful lad, he's got an eye for growing things. Knows what sorts of plants can manage that. Though," he held up a finger and grinned, "there are a couple of things we dug up that are distinctly non-regulation."

She raised her eyebrows. "Someone was using the hydroponics garden to grow... what, marijuana?"

"Better. Coffee."

"You stole someone's coffee plants?" She was affronted, but somehow drawn in, captured by Jack's eagerness and energy.

"Now, I happen to know who those coffee plants belong to," he said, leaning forward. "And I also happen to know that Captain Norrington does not like coffee. Like any proper British officer, he drinks tea."

Lyta thought about that for a couple moments. "I didn't know he was British."

"What, you think he bought the accent at a surplus store? Maybe he's not from the isle, love, but he's got the whole posture down. Especially the bits about rum, sodomy, and the lash."

Lyta burst out laughing. Jack seemed oblivious to the humor. "In any case, those coffee plants are property of Captain Norrington that he won't mind going missing. At least, not a few. So our little garden has a home for them." His smile this time was kind. "We specialize in unwanted flowers."

She swallowed against the sudden rushing in her ears and looked away. He was still smiling; she could feel it. "Why do you hate mundanes so much?"

His surprise was palpable. "Hate them? I don't hate them. They're just jealous of us because we're better than they are."

"It sounds so simple when you say it."

Jack leapt off the armrest and landed at her feet, squatting low to look up at her. "It is simple. Cohabitation at this stage is difficult if not impossible. So I'm trying something new. Something that isn't Psi Corps, isn't running away and pretending to not be different. I'm trying freedom."

"Freedom through stealing?"

He stood up quickly, spread his hands. "It's a means to an end, love. Freedom comes with a heavy cost. The only other thing we have to pay it in's blood, and that's not something that anyone here wants. Savvy?"

She looked up at him, head tilted and eyes slightly wild, and realized that she wanted more than anything for him to succeed. He seemed to sense it, and his smile was like the sunrise. "C'mon," he said, holding out his hand. "Let's get some dirt under those fingernails of yours, love. Those shoots won't plant themselves."


	8. Looking Up

"Ambassador Delenn?"

_This is probably an unwise idea,_ James thought to himself as Delenn turned and smiled politely. "Yes?"

"I was wondering if there was some time I could ask you a few questions about the Rangers."

"About them, captain?"

He shrugged. "Yes, well... about their training, your philosophies, that sort of thing. What the Rangers did during the Shadow War, what your goals are now."

Her smile grew. "I should hope that the duties of the Rangers for the future have become quite clear. We are here to create the peace. To enforce the laws of the Interstellar Alliance and to defend the weak against those who would prey on them."

He smiled back, politely. "Of course."

They were close to his office by now. Delenn followed him in. "You have managed to choose a very opportune time for curiosity," she said.

"Oh?" He checked the time, then pulled relevant paperwork and a small wooden box out of his desk in preparation for his 0930 appointment.

"Yes. Two of our greatest teachers, Sech Turval and Sech Durhan, are coming to Babylon 5 to report on the status of our training program. They are arriving tomorrow morning. I am certain they would not mind discussing the Rangers with you."

"I wouldn't want to be an inconvenience," he demurred.

"It will be no burden. I will arrange a meeting."

Right on schedule, then, Lieutenant Corwin walked through the door. "Captain. Ambassador. You wanted to see me, captain?"

James kept himself from smiling by an act of will. "Indeed. Pardon me a moment, Ambassador. Lieutenant Commander, you're going to need to see Ambassador Delenn's people about a new uniform."

"I... uniform?" Corwin blinked a couple times. "Sir?"

"Indeed, Lieutenant Commander," he said, reaching behind him and scooping the promotion papers and the rank bars off the desk. "If you're going to be my second-in-command, you're going to need something a little more... formal."

Corwin had to look at the orders before he really believed it. "Sir. Thank you, sir!"

"Your new uniform will be swiftly attended to," Delenn said.

"Thank you, ambassador," Corwin said. And then again, "Thank you, captain."

"You deserve it," James said. "I'll see you in C&amp;C when I'm done here."

Corwin grinned and saluted, then nearly skipped out the door. James finally let himself smile and leaned back on the desk. Some moments were worth the trouble.

Delenn watched Corwin leave, then turned to say, "I would have thought you would have brought in one of your own people for the position."

He shrugged. "That would have defeated the point of bridging the gap between Earthforce and the station," he said. "And he does deserve it. I was just waiting to see myself how well he holds up under fire. Besides, I hate coffee, and this way I can deed those plants to him."

That caught her off-guard. "Pardon?"

"Never mind. Local legend."

She nodded. "Well, then. I have some preparations I must attend to. Good day, captain."

"Good day, ambassador."

There was one piece of business taken care of, then. Only five more impossible things to get done before breakfast. James mentally moved _Make sense of Mr. Garibaldi_ to the last slot on the list and picked up his pad; it was going to be a long day.


	9. Last Month is Prologue

James was almost getting used to working through meals. A time and place for everything--and enough time off to eat and not let the pressure of the station absolutely destroy his remaining scraps of patience and self-control--were luxuries he'd reinstate once he was sure he could turn his back for twenty minutes without something going straight to hell.

Breakfast, then, was usually a toss-up between getting to know more of the bridge crew and sitting alone poring over whatever reports were next on the mission-critical list. He looked around when he entered the mess and ticked off the possibilities in his mind. No, most of the bridge crew were occupied today. It looked to be a morning of--

"Yo! Captain!"

\--reviewing Corwin's pilot rotation schedule please God let that not be Garibaldi planning on some sort of confrontation.

Garibaldi snapped and gestured to an empty chair between him and Mr. Allan. "Nothing wrong with the chair here. Why don't you join us?"

James kept his expression still while reviewing his options:

1\. Beg off, ignore the point-scoring game that Garibaldi was likely playing in his head, and spend the rest of the meal overhearing cheap shots at his expense while trying to read.

2\. Sit down, deal with whatever point Garibaldi wanted to make head-on, as it seemed this was the day Garibaldi had chosen to make some sort of stand.

3\. Unholster his PPG and shoot someone through the head. On the list of candidates: himself, Garibaldi, everyone in the room.

"Thank you," he said, regretfully shelving option three for some later date. He set his tray down between the former-head-of-security-who-wanted-him-gone and his current-head-of-security-who-wanted-to-vanish-into-the-floor. "Gentlemen."

"So," Garibaldi asked as he sat down. "How's it goin'?"

"Just fine," he answered, setting the report folder down beside his chair.

"Working through breakfast?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't sure I'd be guaranteed such stellar compay. And I'll have to read it this morning, anyway."

"What's up?" Allan asked.

"I had Corwin work on optimizing fighter rotation schedules," James said. He loaded a forkful of blueberry-protien-paste in the slim hope he'd actually be able to eat something before this turned into a fight. "While we survived that last invasion attempt without too many losses, that time we had warning. We'll need a more efficient schedule if we're to be at full alertness against a surprise attack."

"Good luck," Allan said. James cautiously ate some of the generic paste. Garibaldi was quiet so far. "During the fighting last year we lost a lot of fighters. We're down to about two-thirds of what we should have."

"Well," Garibaldi said, "now that Earth's joined the new Alliance, maybe they can send along some replacements. Say, you're on good terms with the administration, Captain, maybe you can ask them for us."

James quickly checked option three and found it still invalid. Damn.

"You give me far too much credit, Mr. Garibaldi," he said, trying to put a blanket on the brushfire. If they could keep the conversation to angry sniping, maybe the mess would survive through breakfast intact.

"You think?"

"Indeed."

Allan cleared his throat. "Maybe we should, uh..."

It was a nice thought, but Garibaldi wasn't going for it. "You know, it just occurred to me, that since you were on the other side during the civil war back home, you might feel some sort of obligation to replace some of the fighters that we lost during the campaign."

So now someone had finally said it, and the accusation was out in the open. No hope for it now. "Who said I was on the other side?"

"Well, I certainly didn't hear your name mentioned by anyone on _our_ side."

There was some sort of ringing noise in his ears. It was blotting out whatever Allan was saying to try to change the subject of conversation, and most of the other conversations in the room which were swiftly dying down. "That's a rather sad and limiting way of viewing the universe, Mr. Garibaldi. That if I'm not with you I must be against you. The enemy."

"In this case, there weren't too many alternatives," Garibaldi snapped. "There have been a lot of rumors going around since you got on board this station, Captain. Now maybe everyone else is afraid to ask, but I don't have that problem. I don't work for you, I answer only to Sheridan, and I wanna know, just for me--_which side were you on?_"

James didn't bother looking around. The silence let him know very well how closely everyone else in the room was paying attention. "Very well," he said. "I wasn't on Sheridan's side during the civil war, no."

That admission cranked the tension in the room up a few notches.

"I believe in the chain of command," he continued. "I believe that the military should be a tool of the people, a force for upholding the constitution and protecting the populace, not a Rubicon-crossing lynch mob setting policy, deposing sitting Presidents, and firing on our own. We are here to follow orders. If an order violates my conscience, then I have the burden of deciding to execute it or not. The court-martial following that decision won't affect the stability of the Alliance. One can take a stand, Mr. Garibaldi, without tearing down the laws and practices that keep us from anarchy."

Garibaldi's look could have melted tungsten. "And did you? Take a stand?"

James was doing his best to keep his voice level. "I believe you have access to my record, Mr. Garibaldi. Otherwise, it's none of your concern. You asked if I took up arms against Earth Alliance, and I gave you my answer."

"And to hell with what Clark was doing to the rest of the galaxy?"

"It's not my place to say what's best for the rest of the galaxy," James said darkly. "Nor for the entirety of Earth. It is my place to do what is best for my crew, my ship, and the things I _can_ see. Not to run off and spit on the Constitution I swore an oath to uphold."

He took a deep breath. "Sheridan was proven right in the details. But joining his side in that fight would have meant throwing away everything he was supposedly fighting for. I wasn't about to do that to my crew, Mr. Garibaldi, even if I could have stomached it myself. And that is _all_ you need to know about it."

Breakfast was a wash. Angry enough that seeing straight was a difficult task, he picked up the report folder, stood, and left, ignoring whatever reaction he was kicking up in his wake.

His breathing was back under control by the time he reached the lift; his timing was excellent, and he managed to catch one almost as soon as he touched the controls.

Sheridan gave him a surprised look as the doors slid open. "Captain."

James nodded in return and curtly gave the computer his destination. "Mr. President."

"How's it going?"

That note of concern was recognizable. "Fine. Mr. Garibaldi finally got a chance to ask me some deep and probing questions."

"Uh-oh."

"The mess is still intact."

Sheridan chuckled. James probed at the sore spot of the conversation with a mental finger, found it didn't hurt as much as he thought. "Actually, it's obvious that the crew needed to hear some sort of definitive answers. Maybe I should be thanking him."

"Just don't put him through a bulkhead in your enthusiasm." Then, more seriously, "So he still doesn't trust you?"

"Not as far as he could throw me in twice gravity."

"Do you want me to talk to him?"

"No." James rubbed his eyes. "No, I have to deal with him. If I don't, working with anyone from Security will be a nightmare."

"Yeah, good point."

"And besides, if I can't handle one obstinate former officer, I don't deserve the position."

Sheridan didn't laugh. "Are you having second thoughts about this?"

Now there was a frightening thought. "No. All things considered, I think I'm where I ought to be." Another frightening thought. "Unless you've changed your mind."

"Not at all." Sheridan shook his head definitely. "All the reasons I had to recommend you still stand. And Michael will come around, I'm sure of it. He's a good man."

"He's as stubborn as either of us and paranoid to boot."

"Yeah, that too."

The lift arrived and the doors slid open. James stepped out, then turned around and looked at Sheridan. "Don't worry, I'm sure this will all make for an amusing story someday."

"Yeah?" Sheridan said. "I still remember our last one. Good day, Captain."

"Mr. President." The doors slid shut again. James hitched the folder of reports under his arm and set off for his office.


	10. Dark and Dingy

There weren't any overt repercussions from the argument at breakfast. If the crew were talking, they were doing it where James couldn't hear them. He turned his mind to station business in C&amp;C, listened to Corwin's delighted responses to compliments on his new uniform. After a while, he started to hope that the rest of the day would go smoothly.

Allan's report at 0900 wasn't very encouraging.

"This newest murder isn't just an isolated incident," Allan said. "I think we're starting to see some people muscling to fill the power vacuum that opened up when N'Grath got taken down. We're working to track down who's responsible, but we don't have any leads yet."

"Nobody's talking?" Dr. Franklin asked, sounding surprised.

Allan shook his head. "They're lurkers. They don't talk to Security much anyway, and expecially not when they get scared. We're working on it." He cleared his throat. "Also, the telepaths that Garibaldi asked for are reporting in today for a briefing."

James nodded. The less he officially knew about that situation, the better.

But it did give him an idea, which is why instead of sitting around his office reading the paperwork demanding his attention, he headed to brown sector, into a specific, ill-used area.

He'd never actually been to this corner of brown sector before, but he was reasonably sure that the lookout post around the corner was new. As was the woman manning it, slender with Ethiopian features and a short mane of curly hair. She tilted her head to one side and considered his presence with narrowed eyes as he stuck his hands in his pockets and waited.

"Can I come in?" he asked when she gave no response for a full minute.

"CAPtain James Norrington," rang out a familiar voice from past the doorway to the telepaths' quarters proper. After a moment, Sparrow burst through the entrance and skidded to a halt, holding out both his hands in a gesture that was half welcoming and half measuring. He'd got himself a tricorner from somewhere, and it completed his completely insane outfit. "Welcome. Almost thought you'd forgotten about us."

James sighed. "I wish I could. It would make my job much easier."

"Oh?" Sparrow's eyebrows went up. "I could do that for you, mate."

"Mister Sparrow, if I ever let you inside my head I will be far more desperate than I am now, and possibly on prescription painkillers."

Sparrow laughed. "Oh, that would be a shame, Captain. I like you for your mind, y'see. Well," and here he grinned again, "mostly, anyway."

Oh, God, the madman was flirting with him. Giving Sparrow his coldest glare, he said, "I've actually come to ask if you've heard anything about the recent murders outside. But if you're so wrapped up in your own delusions that you won't look out your door, there's no reason to stay and talk."

"Wondered when you'd get to it." Sparrow shrugged, and all previous jocularity was gone from his face. "It's a concern of mine too, mate. Though I don't think this character could get past Dhareena," he waved at the woman on watch, "or any of us, for that matter."

James nodded. "If one of you could give Mr. Allan a description, or a name, we can put surveillance on him and pick him up before he hurts someone else."

Sparrow tilted his head back and studied him under lowered eyelids. "I have a better idea," he said. "How's about you go on back to your quarters and get out of that uniform, and come back here in civvies for a tour of Downbelow, and I'll _show_ you the sort of things you need to know?" His grin was back, and he was brushing his beard in a frankly suggestive manner.

"There are _some_ subjects, Sparrow," he said, keeping his voice under control, "where secondhand reports are actually preferable."

"In all seriousness, mate, you spend entirely too much time in that." Sparrow waved at the leather-and-cloth frontplate of his uniform. "You should spend at least some time on lurker's-eye-level if you're ever going to _really_ know this place."

The infuriating thing of it was he was probably right. "And in return, you'll tell me who this person is, the one trying to grab power down here?"

Sparrow's grin was like a shark's. "Exactly. You have my word."

Why was he going to agree to this scheme? "All right," he said. "I'll return in half an hour; I plan on leaving with positive identification."

"Lovely." The telepath bowed grandly. "I look forward to it."

This time Sparrow was waiting outside when he returned. He studied James' approach, then said, "You still walk like you're in uniform, you know."

"I haven't had much practice with your style," James said, then did his best impression of Sparrow's normal lurching gait to illustrate. Sparrow threw back his head and laughed, then applauded magnanimously.

"Fair enough, captain. But do try to relax. You look like trouble." He beckoned back up the hallway and began walking. James fell into step beside him, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

Strangely enough, he didn't feel any fear as they threaded their way into the tent city sprung up in the heart of the station. He had a PPG tucked into a shoulder holster under his jacket, to be sure, but he didn't think he'd have to use it. Maybe Sparrow's strange madness was catching. Or maybe he just had enough faith in Sparrow's abilities to get them out of any situation they fell into.

Sparrow narrated their journey, pointing out families, businesses, telling stories, mentioning hopes and dreams. James knew that the telepath was scanning them, or at least listening to their minds in a way that wasn't strictly within regulations, but Sparrow's descriptions were never unkind, and slowly he found himself watching the huddled masses and seeing individuals, faces. Most people were bent over their posessions, too weary to give the strangers a look, but some watched them with wide eyes, some with hands outstretched, some with hands clutching weapons hidden under blankets.

Some groups of young men watched them pass with hands clenching weapons in the open, Drazi knives and worse. Sparrow never seemed to mind, and they passed unmolested.

The communities in Downbelow seemed to self-segregate by species, only mixing around central points like corridor junctions and pipes with illegal water taps. Sparrow paused and took a drink from one such, careful not to spill any of the precious liquid on the deck. James watched him, mentally adding it to the list of things the telepaths owed the station for, in addition to food, shelter, and that batch of equipment stolen from hydroponics.

"Now," Sparrow said, leading him down a slightly less dingy corridor, "time for something to eat."

"Sparrow, I really don't think--"

"You know, I was thinking," Sparrow said, ignoring him and drawing up to a cart manned by a bored-looking Drazi. "That ship of state. Solon made the code of laws for Athens, wiping out the laws that Dracon wrote. Y'know, the death-for-everyone laws." Without waiting for a response, he turned to the Drazi and said, "Two of the usual, mate."

The Drazi grunted and pulled a drawer in back of his cart open. James watched, warily, and said, "Yes, and then he was exiled to Lydia and attempted to knock sense into Croesus, who went and attacked Persia anyway. Not the greatest of military strategies." He didn't want to admit he'd gone and reread his copy of Herodotus' _Histories_ after that last conversation, but it was futile to try and keep it from a telepath. Sparrow gave him a smug look, then took the two wrapped packages from the Drazi and passed one to him with a flourish.

Whatever it was had been neatly wrapped in greasy paper, and the smell--well, all right, it _smelled_ good, but--Sparrow already had his open and was taking an enthusiastic bite. Gingerly, James folded back the paper to reveal a pita shell filled with unidentifiable meat strips.

Well, anything that would kill him would probably kill Sparrow. When he finally nerved himself to take a bite, the taste was heavenly.

"This is very good," he told the Drazi, who nodded with a slight smile on his face.

Sparrow nodded at the Drazi and then sauntered off down another corridor."Now," he said between bites, "Athens was a city-state in Greece, yes?"

"I don't believe Greece was a unified country back then," James said.

"Well, whatever." Sparrow waved it off. "My point is, you've got this ship. Your crew. Your ship of state, whatever."

"Yesss..." He took another bite of the mystery food. Whatever sauce the Drazi had ahold of, it had to have been smuggled on. Nothing that good could be strictly legal.

"But what about my crew? Don't we have a ship of state, too?"

James swallowed, scowled. "Don't tell me you want me to call _you_ captain."

"I think it's got a nice ring to it. Captain Jack Sparrow. Don't you think?"

James rolled his eyes. "If you're waiting for me to legitimize your egotism you're going to have a long wait ahead of you."

Sparrow pouted. He would have said more, but the sound of a woman screaming up ahead cut him off.

With a quick hop, Sparrow ditched his sandwich by the wall and took off. James followed a moment after, reaching for his PPG. The woman screamed again. They dodged around sleeping forms, through another small courtyard, and a doorway. No more screaming. They walked on, alert, checking doorways for evidence of a fight.

They heard the beating down another small hallway. It was about that time when James realized that he could hear at least four people, not including the victim, and he had only himself and Sparrow on his team. If he even had Sparrow.

"All right, that's enough," said one of the assailants, a deep voice with an Australian-influenced accent. Sparrow perked up at the noise, jerked his head, and nodded significantly. James nodded back. He'd remember that voice. "Let's get out of here before Security shows up."

Their timing was either miserable or perfect. He waited until he could hear their footsteps leave, even though his blood boiled to take them out, now. It was terrible odds. The most important thing now was to save that woman.

It wasn't a woman, though, who was collapsed on the deck bleeding. It was a Minbari in a Ranger's uniform.

Cursing softly, James holstered his PPG and checked to make sure the Ranger was still breathing. Then he hit his link. "Norrington to Medlab, I need a trauma team in Brown 13, stat."

He had no sooner put his link down than he heard running, and charging PPGs. He looked up to see Zack Allan come through the doorway at the head of a squad of security officers. Allan dropped his PPG and groaned. "Ah, hell."

"I've already called Medlab," James said, standing. From behind the security force, another Minbari in a similar uniform stepped forward and knelt at the side of the first Ranger. The look on his face was a mixture of worry and shame.

"All right, captain. Did you see the guys who did this?" Allan asked.

He shook his head. "No, but--" and of course, Sparrow was nowhere to be seen. He sighed sharply and looked back at the man on the deck as Allan directed his team to search the next hallways by quarters.

And he realized he knew exactly who the Ranger's assailant was, and what he looked like.

Well. He looked around again for Sparrow, but the telepath was still missing. He sent him a brief mental thanks as the trauma team came and started attending to the fallen Ranger, then went to speak with Mr. Allan.


	11. Springboard to Madness

Ranger _trainee._ One of Delenn's precious Ranger _trainees_ had gotten beaten to a pulp. On _his_ station. James Norrington was not having the best of days.

"I'm sorry, Delenn," he said as she stood at the isolation room window, staring at the surgical team assembled around the still figure like attendants to a slow ritual, stitching, swabbing, bandaging in measured rhythm. Two other Minbari stood behind her, in Ranger uniforms, the teachers she had spoken of, no doubt. The other trainee was also at the window, staring, where he had been for the last half hour. Doctor Franklin stood to one side, a pad with the data he'd just told them clutched in one hand. The injured trainee--Tannier--was badly hurt, but he would survive.

"Who did this to him?" she asked softly.

"A man named Trace who is attempting to sieze power in Downbelow," James said. "We'll be able to confirm the identification when he awakes and have Security take him in."

"That won't be necessary, captain," the more heavy-set of the two teachers said. "This is a matter for the Rangers now."

James cleared his throat. "With all due respect, Sech Durhan," he said, "this is our jurisdiction." He met Durhan's surprised, then thoughtful gaze evenly. _That's right. I can read a passenger manifest, and I know enough about Minbari crests to know which of you is Religious and which is Warrior caste. So I have enough mental aptitude to take out one upstart mob boss._

"The Rangers have their own jurisdiction, captain," Durhan said. "And that supercedes yours." He turned to Dr. Franklin as James straightened in anger. "Make him well enough to stand, Doctor; we will do the rest." He snapped one final word in Minbari, then turned and left.

Whatever the word meant, it got the attention of the rest of the Rangers. Delenn looked discomfited. The other teacher, Sech Turval, frowned, but nodded and followed Durhan out. The other trainee looked terrified, but followed his teachers.

James exchanged a look with Dr. Franklin, who looked just as mystified. Finally, Franklin cleared his throat and asked, "What does that mean, 'mora'dum'?"

Delenn wouldn't look at either of them; she kept her eyes fixed on Tannier's face. "It refers to a part of Ranger training," she said. "It means, 'the application of terror.'"

"Ambassador," James said. She looked at him, and for the first time he was conscious, acutely, that _she_ was in uniform and _he_ was definitely not. "I understand that you might not have the greatest faith in Babylon 5 Security at the moment, but let me assure you--"

"It is not faith in Security that I lack," she said. She would have continued, but at that moment President Sheridan came through the door and walked over to them.

"Delenn. Captain. Doctor. I came as soon as I could." Sheridan nodded at Tannier's form inside. "How is he, doc?"

"Bad, but he'll heal," Franklin said.

"We know who the assailant is," James said.

"The Anla'shok will take care of it," Delenn said.

Sheridan nodded. "All right."

James stared, not really believing his ears. "Mr. President," he said, "this is a matter for Babylon 5 Security. Mr. Allan has been on the track of this man for a week. It's an internal matter."

"The Anla'shok are required to take care of such things ourselves," Delenn said. "The independent authority of the Rangers has been recognized by all members of the Alliance, including Earth. Under the new constitution, the Anla'shok are above local security and police forces, Babylon 5's included."

Sheridan was giving him a look. "She's right."

"Since when--" James exclaimed, then stopped himself, _fast._ "Apologies, but ambassador, sending the Rangers to take out these cretins because they hurt one of your own not only violates due process but sets a precedent of assaulting people for personal revenge."

"Minbari have a different process for law than humans," Delenn said. "And the standards of proof for the Anla'shok are remarkable. And this is not about revenge."

"'The application of terror,'" he quoted her.

"Yes."

He was getting nowhere with this. "Doctor Franklin," he said. "Let Mr. Allan know when Tannier regains consciousness. I want a statement for our records."

Franklin froze, eyes darting between James and Sheridan. "Uh... right."

It wasn't 'yes,' but it would do. "Mr. President," he said, taking his leave. "Ambassador."

"Captain."

Delenn was silent, watching Tannier. James was in no mood to stand on ceremony. He turned and left Medlab, heading for his quarters. He wanted his uniform back on. He wanted to know where everything stood. He wanted to know what hold Delenn had on John to have changed him so much.

He wanted Jack Sparrow to have told him Trace's name and description the first time he'd seen him that morning, so this whole sorry mess could have been avoided.

Oh, well. They'd warned him, when Sheridan's request had come through, that Babylon 5 was going to be a rough assignment. As long as he could keep from yelling at Sheridan in public, he'd be fine. One thing was certain, though: if Babylon 5 and the Alliance came under scrutiny for this, he'd be the one cleaning the stain off the deck.

He wondered if Sheridan had thought of that.


	12. Exponential Decay

Back in uniform, Captain Norrington wedged himself behind his desk and pulled up the Interstellar Alliance constitution, Babylon 5's bylaws, and all the information he had about the Rangers. They painted the same picture that Delenn and Sheridan had given him, only in 8-point legal type.

Well, if he was stuck with it, at least he was _legally_ stuck with it, and there was nothing he could do. He hit his link. "Norrington to Allan."

"Yeah, Allan here."

"The Rangers are going to be taking over from you on that Trace character. Coordinate with them if they need anything."

"Uh, sure, captain." Allan hesitated for a moment. "This is about that Ranger kid, right?"

"Trainee," James corrected him. "Though there's probably some official Minbari term for it."

"There is," Sech Durhan said from the doorway. James looked up to see both of the teachers entering. "Adra'shok. But you needn't bother yourself remembering it."

"That'll be all, Mr. Allan," James said, then closed the link and stood. "Sech Durhan, Sech Turval. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Nothing too urgent, captain," Durhan said. "Entil'zha Delenn said that you wished to ask us some things about Anla'shok training."

James stared for a good few seconds before he recovered his composure. "My apologies, gentlemen, I assumed that given the situation with... Adra'shok Tannier, our conversation would be delayed for a while."

"Tannier needs healing, for now," Sech Turval said. "That will be accomplished without our presence. We have seen to the preparations for the mora'dum, and now we are in a stretch of waiting."

James nodded. Waiting. He understood that feeling. "Well. My first question, then, is what exactly is mora'dum? What's involved? What purpose is being served?"

The two Minbari exchanged a look, then took the chairs across his desk. James sat, and waited. "It... may be difficult for a human to understand," Turval said.

"Try me," James said evenly.

"Tannier was beaten, savagely, by a group of opponents that a fully-trained Anla'shok would be regularly asked to take care of," Durhan said. "If he fears such situations in the future, he will not become _truly_ Anla'shok."

"He must be purged of his terror," Turval said. "And he must understand terror, and its causes. And he must use this knowledge to better understand himself."

"So you'll force him to confront Trace?"

"No, captain," Turval said. "We will force him to confront himself."

James closed his eyes briefly. The Minbari had been taking elocution lessons from the Vorlons for almost a thousand years, and it showed. "Well, while that covers your purpose to some extent, it doesn't help me to understand your method."

"When Tannier is well enough to stand, the rest of the Rangers on station will assist us in corralling Trace and his men," Durhan said. "And then Tannier will control them. With fear."

"And if he controls himself as well," Turval added, "he may continue his training."

James stared at them. "Let me get this straight," he said. "You're going to have a half-healed Ranger trainee torment these people, with your help? And then see what that does to his mental state?"

"The _results_ of the application of terror can be just as frightening as the terror itself," Durhan said. "Tannier will likely find out things about himself that he will need to confront."

There was a cold, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly he didn't want to hear any more details. "I'm required to allow you to do this, but I have to admit you haven't made me any more comfortable with the idea."

"The mora'dum is not supposed to be comfortable, captain," Durhan said.

James nodded, eying them. Then he asked, "Marcus Cole?"

That got him a pair of startled looks. "Marcus," Turval said. "Marcus was one of our best students. Did you know him?"

"A long time ago," he said, feeling a bit of deja vu. "Why did he join the Anla'shok? It doesn't seem like him."

"One's reasons for joining the Anla'shok are personal, captain," Turval said reprovingly.

"It sounds like something his brother would have done," James continued.

The Minbari traded another glance. James leaned forward slightly. "Was William also in the Rangers?"

"Yes," Durhan said.

"He was one of our first human recruits," Turval said.

"I will admit at the time that I was not convinced of either Entil'zha Sinclair or the necessity for training humans," Durhan continued. "But Anla'shok such as William and Marcus Cole changed my mind."

"William Cole died on Arisia," James said, something slow and hot starting to burn in the back of his mind. "I know this because I read Marcus' report on the matter. I've since learned that it was the Shadows who destroyed Arisia colony."

"Yes," Turval said.

"Did Marcus join the Rangers to avenge his brother?"

Turval looked slightly uncomfortable. Durhan sighed.

James rested his elbows on his desk. "Did William being in the Rangers have anything to do with the Shadows picking Arisia to destroy?"

"As far as we can ascertain," Durhan said quietly, "yes."

"I see."

He did see. All the things he'd been running _from,_ all the people he'd left without ever really reconciling with, had been wiped out by a force for a massive war that William and Marcus were only tiny pieces of. He sighed. There was nothing to be done for it, of course. Wars happened. People died. More than pasts were wiped out.

But at the moment, he just wanted the Rangers out of his office. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said, standing. "I believe that's everything I wanted to know. You'll have our every assistance while you carry out your... training exercise."

Turval and Durhan stood, bowed politely. "Captain."

He watched them until they were all the way outside, listened until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he collapsed back into his chair and closed his eyes. Shadows, Rangers, thoughts of home... this was the sort of station insanity that turned hero-of-the-Line Sinclair into the leader of the Rangers and Sheridan into the President of the Interstellar Alliance, married to a Minbari. James wondered what a year or two of this place would do to him.


	13. Point of Inflection

James had enough station business to keep him from thinking too hard about the Ranger problem for the rest of the day. Breakfast the next morning was delightfully uneventful. And Tannier was walking by midday.

Five minutes after that, Dr. Franklin was in his office complaining. "Do you know what they're planning? This is one of my patients, captain, and they're going to put him in a fight with the guy who put him in medlab in the first place!"

"I'm not sure it's going to be a fight, exactly," James said. "And it concerns me as well. But I can't stop them, and neither can you."

"But, captain..."

"You'll have to take it up with Ambassador Delenn."

Crew relations on this station were the most confusing he'd ever had to deal with.

He assigned Corwin an hour of Starfury training a day. Then he thought about how long it had been since _he'd_ gotten into a cockpit and signed himself up for a dogfight drill with Beta and Gamma squads.

He was marking time until he heard about the mora'dum, he had to admit.

At 1400, Mr. Allan walked into his office, looking as though he'd rather be staggering. "Captain. The Rangers just turned Trace over to us; we've got him in for processing."

James gestured at a chair across from his desk; Zack fell into it gratefully. "Is there anything wrong?" he asked while Zack rubbed his eyes.

"Well, no, nothing... it's just that he wouldn't stop _screaming,"_ Zack said. He rubbed his eyes again, then shook his hand when he noticed it was trembling. "And then when he wasn't screaming he was just... jeez, that was messed up."

James opened the bottom drawer of his desk and hauled out the bottle of scotch he kept for emergencies. "And Tannier?" he asked as he poured Zack a generous shot.

Zack stared at the liquor for a second, then tossed it back gratefully. "Like someone just vivisected his puppy. I think he threw up somewhere."

James held the bottle up again. Zack shook his head.

"I'll have to request the Anla'shok keep their object lessons off this station from now on," he said as he replaced the scotch. Zack nodded vehemently.

The sound of someone's shoes echoed in the hallway outside. James scooped the empty glass off the desk and put it with the bottle. A moment later, Ambassador Delenn came around the corner, stopped when she saw Zack. "I'm sorry, Mr. Allan, captain. Captain, can I speak with you?"

He nodded, standing to greet her. Allan pushed himself to his feet. "I've got to get back to work. Thanks, captain. Ambassador."

Delenn watched him go, fidgeting with the cuffs of her sleeves. James cleared his throat. "From Mr. Allan's report, I'll assume that everything went well enough."

"Yes..." she said softly.

"I would appreciate if any repetitions of this particular exercise happened somewhere other than Babylon 5."

She smiled slightly and straightened her shoulders. She still wasn't looking at him. "Sometimes, captain, the time and place of such things cannot be compromised."

"So Tannier's performance is being evaluated?"

"He will continue his training." She suddenly looked at him, and there was a strange questioning in her glance. "Captain... I spoke with John last night... about the reasons that he chose you for this position."

James attempted to ignore the feeling of cold dread settling in his stomach. "I hope you haven't been listening to rumors, but I stand by everything I told Mr. Garibaldi yesterday."

"Not that," Delenn said, taking a step forward. "The real reason."

By which she meant, of course, _that_ reason.

"Ah," he said. Then, for lack of something more intelligent to say, "I was actually surprised when I figured out he hadn't told you before now."

"As was I," she countered.

He couldn't help smiling at that. "Indeed."

After an awkward pause, he cleared his throat. "As the situation is... somewhat personal, and has nothing to do with why I _accepted_ the position... I'd appreciate it if this stayed between you, John, and myself." He hesitated. "If possible."

"If possible," she agreed.

James felt a sharp longing for the emergency scotch he'd just put away.

Unwilling to declare this a true emergency, he sighed and sat down again. "I truly wish he had told you before I came on board," he said.

"I wish he had told me sooner than that," she said acerbically. James raised an eyebrow, and she gestured helplessly and took the seat across from him. "When Minbari become close, the preparations for marriage are... extensive. There are many rituals to consider."

"I've heard stories," he said.

"Yes, well." She flattened her hands on his desk. "There are different rituals if one of the partners has had previous marriages. You see?"

"Ahh," he said. "And you knew about Anna, but you didn't know about me."

There. He'd finally admitted it out loud.

"Exactly."

He frowned in thought. "I suppose it wouldn't help to tell you it only lasted all of three months?"

She smiled tolerantly. "It is not the duration, captain. It is the commitment."

"Under the circumstances, you can call me James." It still wasn't a big enough emergency to justify another shot of Oban 30-year. No matter how bad his headache was getting. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Delenn opened her mouth to politely decline, then saw he was serious and gave the question more thought. "No, ca--James," she finally said. "Thank you for your offer, but... John is not Minbari, and I should respect that."

"He'd do anything for you, you know."

There was something in his voice he couldn't quite control. Her smile said she knew it, and forgave him for it. "I know."


	14. Brightly-Coloured, Fast-Moving Object

"It's a farewell party," Prime Minister Mollari was explaining.

The invitation itself felt like it weighed two pounds, as though it were embossed in solid gold instead of just encrusted with it. James Norrington turned it over in his hand and attempted to make out the ornate Centauri script on the front, with little success. "You're returning to Centauri Prime soon, then?"

"Yes," Mollari said. "The Regent's health is failing. Naturally, the court wants me there as much as possible to ease the transition when his condition finally becomes terminal."

"Or terminated," James couldn't help saying.

"Exactly." Mollari's grin was terrifying in its own way. "Please come, captain. It would be an insult to the Centauri government for you to refuse. And you seem to be another one of those Earthforce officers with the delusion that you must work yourself into a coma. Enjoy yourself for one night, at least?"

"I'll pencil it into my calendar," he said dryly.

Mollari grinned again and clapped him on the shoulder before leaving. James smiled thinly and wondered exactly how many minutes it was necessary to appear at a Centauri debauch before everyone was drunk enough that he could slip away unnoticed.

That afternoon there was a Brakiri high priest arriving on station in preparation for a big religious ceremony in a couple weeks; Ambassador Kullenbrak was going to be meeting him in the docking bay in a little under an hour, and James wanted to be there to show the colors, as it were, and maybe get a hint of what this ceremony was about. There was nothing else especially pressing waiting in his office, so he decided to head over, see how traffic was being handled, and give some poor, unsuspecting security officers the impression that their commanding officer could show up, unannounced, at _any moment._

Then again, given what could show up unannounced at Babylon 5 customs, the security officers assigned there were likely hard to faze.

It turned out that the officers on customs duty that morning were doing splendidly. He kept out of their way and watched the bustle of people. Idly, he remembered one of his first questions to Corwin--_Is it always like this?_

Corwin had, after a pause, admitted that it was. Babylon 5's docking bays were never quiet. Here in customs, one could never guess who would step off the next shuttle.

"James? My God, James, is that you?"

For example, the sister of one's former husband, tiny and blonde and rushing into a hug as soon as she was sure of her identification.

"Oof," he said, lifting her up slightly because he could. "Give me some dignity, Lizzie, I'm in uniform."

"You're always in uniform," she teased. "I didn't know you were going to be here!"

"I didn't know _you_ were going to be here," he countered. "Does your brother know?"

Liz waved a negative. "I got a surprise vacation and grabbed it. I haven't seen him in person since just after he got assigned here. But I guess that's your job, now." She grinned. "Ironic, huh?"

"I'm glad to see you're safe."

"I'm fine. I was on Beta Durani for most of it, and while sometimes it got bad, it never got real bad. I was more worried about mom and dad." She brushed hair behind her ears. "Sorry I never got back to you on your letter."

That letter had been sent when word of Babylon 5's declaration of independence had got out. It had been a short missive, basically consisting of, _Has your brother completely lost his mind?_

"It's perfectly all right. Here, let me track down some help for you for your bags."

"No, I'm fine on my own, I don't have much." She smiled. "It's going to be a short visit."

Inspiration struck. "I hope you're going to spend at least two nights."

She nodded.

"Because tomorrow night, if you have nothing else planned, Prime Minister Mollari is throwing a farewell party for himself. You'd do me a tremendous service if you came with me."

Liz knew exactly what he was talking about. "Worried you'll be overwhelmed?" she asked, grinning.

"That is a concern." He smiled. "In all honesty, Lizzie, let's catch up. It's been a while."

"Of course." She hugged him again. "I'm going to go get my stuff into my room, then let my brother know I'm here. Don't spoil the surprise?"

"Wouldn't dream of it." She grinned again, then waved and headed toward baggage claims. He waved, watched her disappear into the crowds.

Only then did he let himself sigh. She still had a crush on him. It was cute, but one of these days it was going to get him into trouble.


	15. Wine, Women, I Need A Lot More Wine

Having Elizabeth Sheridan as a guest at Mollari's party meant that James found himself entering the room right behind John and Delenn. It also meant he was probably triggering another wave of station gossip. Well, it wasn't to be helped, and the thought that people were spreading rumors that he was involved with the president's sister would probably send _her_ into fits of giggles.

They made it to the party about five minutes after it started, to find that the floor was already a mass of dancing girls prancing half-naked or swinging censers, and Mollari was holding court in the middle of a huge banquet table, holding a glass of something in one hand and gesturing grandly in G'Kar's direction with the other.

"Delenn!" Mollari bellowed when he saw them enter. "Before I forget! The blue glasses... blue..." he turned to Vir. "It was the blue, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Cotto said. He looked about twice as sober as Mollari. "The blue glasses are, uh, safe for Minbari metabolism."

That meant non-alcoholic. James gratefully snagged a blue glass from a passing Centauri with a tray. Liz, adventurous, grabbed a red one and tapped his glass with hers. "Cheers."

"Cheers," he echoed, and took a drink while glancing around. At floor level it was hard to see through the crowd and the haze. He pushed his way through toward the main table, Liz trailing with one hand on his arm.

"You made it, captain!" Mollari said when they made it to the small island of calm. G'Kar nodded his own hello as Mollari gestured grandly in Liz's direction. "And who is this ravishing beauty?"

James was slightly surprised that John hadn't introduced her around the last time she was on station. "This is Elizabeth Sheridan, John's sister. Elizabeth, may I introduce Prime Minister Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic, and G'Kar, preeminent citizen of Narn and poet laureate by acclimation of the Interstellar Alliance."

"Hello," Liz said, blinking in a bit of starstruck startlement.

"You give him far too much credit, captain," Mollari said, waving in G'Kar's general direction and taking another drink. "Next thing you know he'll want to be paid for his efforts."

"My words belong to the ages," G'Kar said grandly.

"Your words belong to an editor," Mollari said. "One who can compensate for your unnatural fondness for that human invention the 'semi-colon.'"

"Just because you wouldn't know a subordinate clause if it bit you, Mollari, doesn't mean the more talented writers among us don't appreciate its subtlety."

"Yes, well, _my_ subordinate clauses know better than to try to bite."

"Yes, your people have historically had a great deal of luck with that philosophy."

"How much does one have to drink before you start making sense, again?"

Garibaldi was approaching the table from the opposite direction. James gently caught Liz's elbow and steered her away from the pair. Once they were out of hearing range, which wasn't that far in the crowded hall, she giggled and asked, "So how long have _they_ been married?"

"They've been like that since I've been here," he admitted.

She chuckled and set her empty glass on a passing tray. "Woo, that stuff is strong."

"Yes, that's my impression."

She gave a significant look to his own glass. "You should try to loosen up a bit."

"And how would that look, the captain of the station getting drunk in dress grays?" He smiled and shook his head.

"When was the last time you had a real vacation?"

He winced. Then, because she was waiting, "Bereavement leave in '59."

"James..."

"You did ask."

"You should take some time for yourself."

"How often has that argument worked on your brother?"

Liz sighed in exasperation. "You two are much too alike."

"In this case, I'll agree with you." They'd reached another island of relative calm, by another exit staircase. In the lee of the railing there was a table and some low chairs. Liz claimed one and dragged him into the next.

"So how's it been so far?" she said. "Johnny's first day was atrocious. Had to deal with a rogue Minbari war cruiser trying to start a second Earth-Minbari War."

"Someone tried to kill him my first day here," he replied.

She stared at him for a couple seconds. "Okay, you win."

"I don't think anyone wins this competition." He grinned and finished his blue drink. It was mostly that Centauri fruit that always reminded him of lime, even though it tasted nothing like it.

Liz snagged him a glass of brivari and set it down in front of him before he could complain. "C'mon," she said. "It's a party. I think not indulging is a major insult to the Mollari household gods or something."

"I shudder to think."

"James..."

Elizabeth had an expression that made her look like an unusually stern puppy. It was damnably effective. He finished half the glass in a swallow, then leaned back and sighed as the liquor kicked him in the brainstem. "Happy?"

"Moreso." She pouted. "You're not going to sit here and be boring all evening?"

"I believe that was the essence of my cunning plan."

"You should introduce me to more of the crew. Then we can exchange exciting anecdotes."

James tried to imagine Liz Sheridan interacting with the station crew. The only thing he could picture was Corwin staring at her with a confused and frightened expression. "Didn't John introduce you around last time you were here?"

"Not really." She shrugged. "I met Susan Ivanova."

"Ah?" He leaned forward a bit. "What was she like?"

Liz smiled at him ruefully. "Never attempt to out-drink a Russian lesbian."

He chuckled and looked around the room. Spotting Dr. Franklin cornered by Ambassador Kullenbrak a few feet away, he stood and offered Liz his hand. "Come on, then. Let's perform a selfless deed and rescue someone."

"... I don't want to make light of your beliefs, ambassador," Franklin was saying as they approached. "But I just don't share them. I'm sorry."

"But you've heard of similar things happening. The Soul Hunters, for example. You've heard of them."

"Yeah, I've treated one of them. That still doesn't mean I believe that people's souls can come back after death."

James cleared his throat. Franklin and the Brakiri ambassador looked up at him, the latter with a significant wobble after the motion. "Pardon me, ambassador," he said. "But I need to take the doctor away for a pressing matter. Nothing serious, won't take long, but it's urgent."

Kullenbrak nodded a few times. "Of course, captain." He blinked owlishly, then nodded to the doctor and turned away to hunt another conversational partner.

"What's the problem, captain?" Franklin asked.

James gestured in Liz's direction. "I'm afraid I'm infecting the lady with a terminal case of boredom." He waited for Franklin's grin, then introduced, "Doctor Stephen Franklin, this is Elizabeth Sheridan, John's sister. Liz, Stephen Franklin, head of Medlab and xenobiological research on station."

"Well, nice to finally meet you," Franklin said. "John's mentioned you enough, but I didn't see you when you were last on station."

"It was a pretty short visit, and he was still pretty new," she said. "Xenobio, huh? This must be an exciting place to work, with so many races coming and going all the time."

"Yeah, it's quite a place." He glanced at James, decided something, and turned the grin back on Liz full force. "So the captain's boring you to tears, huh?"

Liz rolled her eyes. "Yes. You know, I've been doing a study of career military like him to try and understand John. Still haven't figured it out."

"Heh, yeah, my dad's career military, and I don't know if I'll ever manage to really connect with him."

Liz was nodding. "Yeah. I do xenocultural anthropology studies, and I worked a bit in the Earthforce diplomatic corps through dad. I was assigned to this ship, the Nestor, on a mission through the Non-Aligned worlds. Well, her captain..."

James had been stealthily backing away, and took this opportunity to leave. He'd heard the story before, and Franklin had enough Babylon 5 stories to keep Liz happy for a while.

He drifted through the crowd, nodding at diplomats and crew, generally putting in an appearance. One of the dancers had Corwin pinned to a chair and was stroking the stitching on his uniform; he had a drink in one hand and his expression was wavering between bewildered and a shy, goofy grin. James smirked and silently wished him luck.

Career military. Well, it was an odd sort of social club.

He raised his glass in Sheridan's direction when he passed him next, turned around the banquet table, and nearly ran into Jack Sparrow.

It was good, he supposed, that he didn't have a PPG on him, and thus the twitch of his hand toward his hip stopped mid-motion and he was able to not spill the rest of the damn drink all over himself. Sparrow just grinned and said, "Captain! Good to see you relaxing a bit."

"Mr. Sparrow," he said, trying his hardest to keep his voice level. "What are you doing here?"

Sparrow shrugged. "It's a party, mate," he said, waving at the guests. "Londo Mollari's basically invited the whole station."

"But not you."

"Well, I didn't get a signed invitation, no, but nobody tried to stop me when I waltzed in here."

James quickly checked the security at the entrances. Still there. Sighing, he said, "That's because you made them not see you when you came in."

Sparrow grinned and held up his hands. "I could have done that, yes."

"Sparrow, I know you don't particularly care about how hard you're making my job, but being here is dangerous for you. And your people."

"What? Why? Who's gonna notice one more colorful character among this bunch?" He waved dismissively at the mass of guests, then stroked the arm of a passing dancer and grinned at her. "Hello, lovey." She smiled back and twirled off, and Sparrow nodded back at him. "See?"

"You're not being very discreet."

"That wasn't in the original agreement, mate."

"No. But people are beginning to talk."

Sparrow frowned. "What people? The lurkers?"

"The two maintenance workers you sheltered during the invasion last week?"

"Oh." Sparrow was, for once, strangely unmoving. "I suppose we did at that."

"The maintenance crew talks, Sparrow. They tell their friends, their friends tell their friends... sooner or later, someone writes a letter home, and someone there writes a letter to the Psi Corps."

"Ah."

He stepped closer to the unnaturally still telepath. "I don't want to fight the Psi Corps over you. The more you flaunt yourself, the sooner that confrontation is going to come."

Sparrow tilted his head back and grinned, slowly. "You make a remarkably good argument, captain."

"Thank you."

"But, there's nothing to be done about it now." All of a sudden, Sparrow wound both of his arms around James' left, attaching himself like a limpet. "C'mon, drink some more of that stuff and let's enjoy ourselves."

James looked down at his arm, up at Sparrow. "Get off me."

Sparrow tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Don't even pretend you're not interested, mate."

Telepath. Telepath telepath telepath. James sighed and said, "That has nothing to do with it."

"What, then?"

"I keep a list of people that I definitely shouldn't sleep with."

Sparrow looked delighted, for some reason. "And I'm on it? By name?"

"Yes, you are."

That got Sparrow's hands off him, as the telepath clapped in excitement. "That's wonderful. Myself and my ego both thank you. Who else is on it, pray tell?"

James shrugged. "People in my direct chain of command, for one."

"I imagine that's at the top of the list."

"Indeed. You're next."

Sparrow chortled. "Go on."

"Blonde women named Elizabeth."

That got him a startled stare. "So specific?"

James nodded. "On principle."

"Wouldn't want you to compromise your principles. Anyone else?"

He shrugged again. "Past and present in-laws, and people who are married to other people. The rest gets rather nebulous."

"Ahh." Sparrow leaned close again, grinning. "So that means that the lovely Elizabeth Sheridan is on that list twice."

"Yes." He looked down at his brivari, considered it, then knocked off the rest of the glass. It tasted like beeswax and ginger. "Do you really have to trawl around in people's heads like that?"

"Hm? Oh, side effects of the... erm..." Sparrow's hands were back to fluttering in front of his face. He pointed off into the distance, then gave up trying to find the right direction and just threw up his hands in exasperation. "Thing. Anyway. Blocks are very difficult."

"I thought they were one of the major things drilled for telepaths."

"Yes, because they're hard." Sparrow grinned again. "And harder still when the landscape keeps changing. All right, captain. I'll keep that list in mind." He pointed at a spot right between James' eyebrows, then vanished.

James looked down at his empty glass, then rubbed his eyes. More brivari sounded simultaneously like a very wise and a very bad suggestion.

He compromised by taking another glass and ignoring it while he weaved his way back toward Liz. She was still talking with Franklin, and they looked to be having a fine time.

When he got in range of hearing, he was able to make out that they were talking about _him._ Lovely.

"...reorganizing everything," Franklin was saying. "Not that it's bad, the new system, now that it's running, but the thoroughness with which he did it shocked the hell out of some people."

"God, yes, I can see that," Liz said. "He's compulsive about knowing how things are put together. This one time, he reorganized John's sock drawer, back when they were married? You never saw such fireworks."

Franklin stared at her blankly. "What's that?"

James stepped up to them and cleared his throat. "You do run your mouth off a bit, Liz."

She looked up to him, then at Franklin, then slapped her hand across her eyes. "Oops."

Franklin was looking at him with a very strange expression. "You... and John... were married."

Time for that drink. "Three months, right out of the academy," he said when his airway was clear again.

"Sorry," Liz said sheepishly. "Forgot."

Franklin had that smug _I know something that Mr. Garibaldi doesn't_ look on his face. "So that's why..."

James sighed, a bit peevishly, he had to admit. "I do have other qualifications, you know."

"Yes, but I know John Sheridan, and all of a sudden this whole thing makes sense." He grinned. "So why keep it a secret?"

"Because it's personal, and because I don't want to put any more pressure on him and Delenn than I have to." He smiled tightly. "Also because I don't want it getting in the way of my job."

"Ahhhh." The smile wasn't going away.

James considered for a moment, then said, "You're going to tell Mr. Garibaldi, aren't you?"

Franklin looked startled, then a bit guilty. James sighed. "Well, I'm not going to try and order you not to or anything like that. But for God's sake, can it not be the topic of choice in the entire mess?"

That got him a sympathetic look. "Don't worry, captain."

"Doctor Franklin," a slurred Brakiri voice said from nearby. Ambassador Kullenbrak stumbled forward and clapped Franklin on the shoulder. "I'd like to continue our previous discussion, if you don't mind..."

Franklin looked up pleadingly. James only smirked and shook his head as the ambassador pulled the doctor away and into another discussion about religion. Sometimes, the karmic wheel righted itself quicker than others.

"Sorry," Liz said. "Sometimes I'm an idiot."

"Don't worry, I forgive you." He patted her on the shoulder gently. "It's a miracle it lasted this long."

"Ha." She took his hand. "C'mon, let's find my brother. All of a sudden I want to continue this party near someone I have license to hit."


	16. Enemies and Families (Part 1)

The Psi Corps shuttle pulled in to the aft loading area in soft zero-G, then was lowered to the rotating ring of the bay and the airlock area for processing. The aft bay was used for large cargo shuttles all the time, so there was more than enough room for the tiny black shuttle to maneuver. And if the telepaths on board had to deplane in the echoing industrial cavern instead of in the comparatively cozy main bay, well, it wasn't Babylon 5's captain who was at fault for a shuttle accident that decimated the entire main docking shaft.

As a bit of an apologetic gesture, that captain was now waiting, outwardly serene, for whoever the Psi Corps had seen fit to send to disembark.

Two rows of telepaths, suited in black, with fierce, focused looks that passed straight through the waiting Babylon 5 security. Six of them in all. And behind them, calmly, walked the Psi Cop Alfred Bester.

_It had to be Bester, of course,_ Norrington thought as he watched the Bloodhound unit take up formation behind him. _Irony and the universe wouldn't stand for anything else._

"Mr. Bester," he said, stepping forward to greet the Psi Cop. "I apologize for the inconvenience. Things always seem to break at the worst time."

"A constant of the universe, captain," Bester said. "I understand you have a rogue telepath problem."

"Yes, we do."

"I do wish we could have been informed of this sooner. I hear they've been on board for some time."

"Balance of power," Norrington said. "You've met Sheridan before, I'm sure you understand."

Bester smirked. "Hm. Of course."

"This way, please," he said, gesturing toward the doors. "We'll get you logged in and find you and your people quarters."

"Wonderful. We should have them cleared out and brought home soon enough."

"I have nothing but confidence in your efficiency, Mr. Bester."

Bester looked up at him, having caught every single one of the undertones that Norrington couldn't quite suppress, and grinned knowingly. "Yes."

They'd known that the Psi Corps would send someone, of course. It wasn't that the two helpless maintenance men had wanted to betray the telepaths they'd met, but they had talked. And other people had caught onto the story. Suddenly, rumor was flying, and everywhere Norrington went there were people speculating on the telepaths in Downbelow. When it had just been the lurkers, of course, the upper levels hadn't given it much credence. Sparrow had been right in that. But he hadn't poked his head out enough to notice how far the knowledge had spread. And the telepaths he'd sent to Garibaldi, Cotton and Anamaria(who had so far stopped one assassination attempt and given them the keys to mediating three treaties) apparently hadn't noticed, either.

Preparations for the Psi Corps, it was noted, had come to nothing. And it didn't help that anyone who went looking for the telepaths got turned around and came back more confused than they went out. Sparrow wasn't talking to anyone but Lyta--and she was prone to put her chin up and declare that the telepaths could take care of themselves, thanks, whenever she was asked.

And her constant trips to Downbelow were starting to wear on Mr. Allan, which wasn't affecting his performance--yet.

And Mr. Garibaldi had stared at him strangely for a week after Londo's party.

And, and, and.

He wondered if the telepaths even knew that Bester was on board.

* * *

"Pack! Move! Quick!"

Lyta stepped through the doorway into a flurry of activity. Jack was whirling around, gesturing frantically at the rest of the colony, who were stuffing backpacks and rucksacks full of clothing, weapons, medicine, food. There was a hum of panic in their minds, but their movements were efficient.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Jack spun to look at her, blinked a couple times, then pointed at one wall. "Psi Corps! Bloodhound units!"

She stared at him as he turned again and exhorted his companions to action. "So you're running?"

He looked over his shoulder at her and frowned. "Got any better ideas?"

"We could fight them!"

"Can't kill a Psi Cop, love," he said, shaking his head. "That's all-out war."

"No, but we can hold them off!"

The rustling psychic noise snapped quiet, and suddenly she had their undivided attention. Jack stepped forward, eyes narrowed. "Just what are you suggesting?"

She gave him a level stare, took a deep breath. "I can block the Bloodhounds."

His eyes widened. _"Can_ you, now."

"Let me hold them off. If that doesn't work..." she took another breath. "Then you can try something else. But this way we might be able to turn them around, convince them you aren't here."

"It does have the appeal of bein' an actual plan, Jack," Gibbs said.

Jack nodded. "Good point. All right, then. Block now, panicked exodus later."

* * *

Bester, James knew, wouldn't be held off with rhetoric, or the conviction of John Sheridan's will. He had pointed this out at a meeting with the President when he first started noticing the problem getting out of hand.

"I've given them permission to stay here."

"But you can't grant them clemency from their crimes."

"What crimes?"

"By Earth law, they're fugitives. And we're bound to noninterference in their recovery."

Sheridan frowned. "What do you mean?"

James pulled out his datapad. "Interstellar Alliance treaty. Passed just a couple weeks in to us _having_ an Interstellar Alliance, if I recall. It covers extradition and law enforcement across borders. I believe you were keen to get it passed in case some of Clark's people attempted to evade War Crimes trials." He looked up. Sheridan was avoiding his gaze.

"Well," Sheridan finally said. "I'm caught in a web of my own making."

"Best to just find them what they're looking for," James advised. "Get them a planet to colonize and they'll be out of our hair."

Sheridan smirked at him. "I remember you suggesting we throw them to the Psi Corps, when they first came on board."

"I said no such thing," James protested. "I suggested we throw them out, because I was afraid this was going to happen."

"Right. And throw them out to where?"

"At the moment, out an airlock sounds tempting." James rubbed his eyes. "Tell me if you think of something. I'll try to come up with some sort of plan."


	17. Enemies and Families (Part 2)

James' own history with the Psi Cop Bester started many years ago, on Mars, in a particularly bad part of town, shortly after the War. Mars was a good stopover point, one he liked more than Geneva; Earth had always made him feel like an insect on a great expanse of flypaper, while Mars at least had domes, tunnels, some sort of air regulation. It was a favored stopover with more of Earthforce because, unlike Earth, they had legalized a number of traditionally illegal recreations.

He hadn't been seeking any of those recreations when he'd left the bar; in fact he'd been trying to get away from the other lieutenants in the Castor's crew who were all too interested. The proposition (white male 170cm fifteensixteen?) startled him out of a reverie, and it was never a good idea to be thinking too much on those streets. He reflexively shook his head and started to leave.

"Stop pretending you're not interested, Earthforce," the kid said. "Legal, clean; I just had a checkup." He stage-coughed over the back of his hand. "And you look like you could use some therapeutic exercise."

James hesitated. He should have left. "Aren't you too young for this?"

The kid blinked wide brown eyes and said, "I'm eighteen; just skinny. Regular meals are hard to come by, see?"

Straightforwardness, legitimacy, pity, need. It all came together, really. And so the lieutenant and the whore (named Ben, Ben Carruthers, and that he hadn't forgotten) retired to a place that specialized in rooms for this sort of thing, and James finally got the courage to ask, somewhere amid sweat and movement and gasps for breath, "Why can't I tell when you're reading my mind?"

Ben looked up at him and laughed, startled. "Wow, your blocks are good, I didn't even know you'd noticed."

"Is it just because I'm not..."

"Here, here--" and then Ben's hands were in his hair, pulling tight, pulling close, and he could hear, _Well, James-Jamie-give the paying customer what he wants, can you feel this, now?_ And then there were mental fingers as well as physical ones, combing the inside of his skull, and he whimpered and thrust and bit down hard on Ben's shoulder and Ben laughed again--_Wellnow, do you need to be seen so much as that, understood so desperately? So, yes, well, don't worry, I won't pry too deep, y'hear?_

\--And after, pulling Ben close and licking the salt and blood off his shoulder, he asked, _What will you do?_

"Oh, I'm running, soon as I have enough credits," Ben said easily. "Somewhere far, somewhere they won't find me." He tousled James' hair again. "You won't tell them, will you?"

"No, no," he promised, so easily. "I'll never tell."

Flash forward ten years to three years ago, Commander Norrington on a small base near Beta Colony, two junior lieutenants dead for gambling with a telepath, for figuring out they were gambling with a telepath and that was why they were losing. A third lieutenant had finally admitted to the commander what they'd all been doing, that they'd been gambling over their allowances, but this was too serious now to hush up, two men were dead, and when there's a telepath and you can't track him down you call the Psi Corps. And the Psi Corps sends a Psi Cop, maybe one named Bester, who comes and hauls in skinny, sticklike Ben Carruthers, who still has blood on his hands and only says "G'bye, Earthforce," his voice slightly slurred by the mix of sleepers and tranquilizers.

Commander Norrington had congratulated Bester on his efficiency and sent him away with the rogue in tow. James had gotten drunk that night and more passed out than fell asleep, and no pills the next morning would get rid of the taste in his mouth like blood, blood on Ben's shoulder, blood on Ben's hands. But the men he served with came first, over promises made a decade ago.

It hadn't been the first promise he'd ever broken. It probably wouldn't be the last. They all tasted like blood.

* * *

"That," Jack said as the Bloodhounds got around the far corner, "Was impressive."

Lyta slumped, and he caught her. "Gently, love," he said. "What d'you reckon we ought to do now?"

"Have to get out of here," she said, mind spinning. "They'll be back with reinforcements, just like they said. And I can't hold off that many."

"Reckon we could."

"No, no," she said. "They'd just start shooting. Jack, we have to go."

"We, love?" He grinned. "You with us, now?"

She reached up, unhooked the small, bronze pin from her lapel. "I'm with you."

"Good on you, love." He looked back at the doorway. "C'mon, you sluggards. It's time to steal a ship!"

* * *

"Do you have any ideas yet?" James asked the President.

Sheridan was pacing behind his desk. "No. No ideas."

James held up the flimsy he'd just printed. "Because I just got priority orders from Earthdome telling me to let Bester command Security to go pick up the telepaths in Downbelow."

Sheridan sighed. "Any chance we can protest it as a... a usurpation of our sovereignty?"

"No." He couldn't help smirking. "Not unless you want to be mistaken for a Centauri."

"Ask me about Abrahamo Lincolni sometime." Sheridan shook his head. "Dammit, captain, there has to be some way out of this."

"Hopefully they'll just give Security the runaround for a while." James scowled. "If this turns into a fight, I'll have Sparrow's head."

"It's not his fault."

"Of course not. But it's _my_ problem." He hit his link. "Norrington to Security."

"Security."

"Mr. Allan, we have a priority request from Earthdome. You're to get a team of no less than thirty officers together and help the Psi Cop Bester and his team collect the telepaths from Downbelow and hold them in custody." He paused. "Our custody. And no more than thirty officers, either."

"You got it, captain."

* * *

Hydroponics wasn't the most comfortable area of the station to hide in, but it was understaffed, there were few cameras, and Lyta was able to deactivate them easily. And Jack was familiar with it from his previous forays there.

As the thirty or so telepaths made their way in a steady diagonal across the official part of the gardens, Lyta inched her way up the column toward Jack. "You said something about stealing a ship?" she asked when they were close.

He looked back at her and grinned. "Commandeering, technically."

"But we can't get anything out of the docking bays. The entire docking elevator has been put out of commission."

"'Course it has, love. I read the news." He patted her hand. "Don't give it a thought. I have a plan."

He crept forward to the next row of planters, bobbing and weaving a few times on the way. Lyta stayed back until Josh caught up to her and gave her a querying look.

"Is he crazy?" she asked.

"Jack? Oh, aye," Josh said. "But he's, erm... well, you know how they used to say those who were mad were touched by the gods?"

Lyta nodded.

Josh smiled and nodded. "That's Jack."

Lyta shook her head and followed them toward the other side of the garden.

* * *

Briggs was manning the desk in Security when James got there. He looked up from the console and nodded. "Captain."

"Any news?"

"They didn't find the teeps, sir. They're starting to search the nearby levels."

James nodded and went to the monitor wall. "Good. Let me know if anything changes."

"Yessir." Briggs went back to monitoring. James watched the displays switch, telling him nothing. He'd requested funds to repair the security systems, but Earthdome was moving slowly. Maybe this would--

"One of the hydroponics cameras is out," he said before his mind had even fully registered it. He frowned at the static on the screen, then called up a nearby view.

That was dead, as well.

As was the third camera he tried.

"Camera diagnostic, hydroponics," he snapped. "Show me what's not working."

A sketchy map of the garden came up, with the affected cameras showing in red. As he watched, another green light turned red, the last in a long diagonal.

"That's where they are," he muttered.

And from their path, they were heading...

He knew where they were going. Running through every curse he knew in his head, he called Sheridan's office.

"Yes, captain?"

"Do you have a solution yet?"

John shook his head.

"Well, I know where they're going. And if I don't tell Bester now, the next time we meet he'll know."

Sheridan grimaced. "Yeah, Psi Cops are like that."

"This one especially." He sighed. "I'll report when we have them. Unless something unexpected comes up."

Briggs was watching, looking uncomfortable. James rested his hand on the console. "When we bring the telepaths into custody," he said, "I want every precaution taken. I want their information run. I want every form filled out." He paused. "In triplicate."

Briggs smiled. "Understood, captain."

James opened a channel to Mr. Allan and hoped against hope that he was wrong this time.

* * *

It turned out to be remarkably easy to pass by security at the zero-g shuttle entrance. All they had to do was tell the Security officers they weren't there, and they could all fit into one of the capsules with a little crowding.

As they shot toward the back of the station, Lyta leaned in close to Jack and murmured, "I don't understand."

He looked back at her over his shoulder. "There's a zero-g work area in back, y'see. It's got a docking area for major maintenance vehicles, industrial work, the like."

She frowned. "So what's back there now?"

The grin came back like like a flash of lightning. "Those Psi Cops left their shuttle there."

Lyta stared at him. "We're going to steal the Psi Cops' shuttle?"

"Why not? It's there."

She watched him turn back to the doors, thumbs drumming on the railing he was clutching, and felt herself smiling in return. Yes. Of course. Why not? It was madness. But she was thrilled with the taste of it.

Until the doors slid open, revealing Captain Norrington, Bester, and a cadre of riot-armed Security officers.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "I'm impressed, captain."

"I'd be much obliged if you'd remain where you are, ladies and gentlemen," Norrington said. His PPG sight was fixed on Jack's head. "You're all under arrest."


	18. Enemies and Families (Part 3)

Lyta sat, hands crossed in her lap, slightly behind and to one side of Jack, who also had his hands crossed, but had one of his boots across his knee and was tapping a staccato rhythm on the leather. They couldn't move very far because of the handcuffs, and Jack's constant need for motion was obviously chafing against the restraints.

Zack was sitting across from them. He'd had a pained expression ever since they'd been hauled in, and had been sending apologetic glances to Lyta for the last twenty minutes. Twenty minutes during which he'd been attempting to get information out of Jack Sparrow, a seemingly impossible task.

"Jack Sparrow doesn't have a match in Orion Colony database," he was saying. "Now, are you going to tell me where you were actually born, or do I have to get Doctor Franklin down here to take plates for dental records?"

This was ridiculous, Lyta thought. Babylon 5 didn't need a full account from them. The Psi Corps didn't care if they were processed or not.

"Now that I think of it, I don't think I was born at all," Jack said, tilting his head back and considering a spot on the ceiling for a moment. "I was dropped off by the stork."

"Yeah?" Zack said, unconcerned. "The stork find an address?"

"Is this going to take until the heat death of the universe?" Bester said waspishly from the corner.

That was the other thing that was making this whole thing unpleasant.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bester," Zack said, not sounding sorry at all. "We need this information."

"Then let me at him. I'm sure I'll have any information you need very shortly."

"Sorry, can't do that either." Zack poked the console and a piece of very official documentation with the IA seal came up on the monitor. "Interstellar Alliance regulations on due process and treatment of prisoners strictly forbid using telepaths in interrogations and prisoner processing. Even when the accused are telepaths. You're here to advise, that's all."

Bester's teeth couldn't possibly be grinding that loudly. It had to be her imagination.

"I had a residence at one point," Jack said helpfully.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Mmm-hmm." Jack nodded. He pulled his hands up and pointed as best he could at Zack's paperwork. "It was a womble-hole on Wimbledon Common. That's doubleyou--eye--em--"

Zack put the end of his pen in his mouth and started chewing on it.

"This is ridiculous," Bester said.

"Well, it'd go a lot easier if you'd give us access to the rest of the Psi Corps database," Zack said.

"Absolutely not," Bester snapped. "That is protected government information."

"Your loss."

Zack _wanted_ this to take forever, Lyta suddenly realized. He was playing for time. Hoping that Sheridan could come up with some miraculous solution. When Zack next looked over at her, she smiled, and he grinned back around his pen.

"And there was me, and Great-Uncle Bulgaria, and Adelaide, she was a sweetheart, and--"

"You _still_ don't match any Jack Sparrow on Earth," Zack said.

"Now why would I match any of them?" Jack said, miffed. "I'm unique. I am the incomparable Jack Sparrow."

"Oh, yeah?" Zack said. "What was your name before it was Jack Sparrow?"

Jack froze. Bester leaned forward suddenly, eyebrows lowered, concentrating. Lyta felt the scan, but it was too fast for her to do anything about it. "Hey--" she yelped.

"Didn't the man just say you're not supposed to try that, mate?" Jack said, raising his hands carefully to rub at the bridge of his nose.

"I don't believe it," Bester murmured.

"Now, what did you just--" Zack started, to be cut off as Captain Norrington entered, tapping a file folder against his off hand.

"Mr. Bester," he greeted the Psi Cop, who was still staring at Jack. When he didn't get an answer, he turned to Zack. "Mr. Allan, how goes it?"

"Not too well, captain. We've got medlab staff helping with DNA tests and dental records; shouldn't take more than a couple hours."

"And _then_ can we have them?" Bester said, voice thick with frustration and anger.

Norrington hesitated, then handed over the folder. "I'm afraid not."

Lyta tried not to get her hopes up as Bester snatched the folder away and opened it. He skimmed the document inside, then looked up at Norrington, almost stricken. "No. You can't."

"Orders are orders," Norrington said. "We can't get definitive travel histories for these people, and if they're to return to Earth-controlled space they need to undergo a quarantine."

"They've been on your _station_ for more than 60 days!"

"We can't confirm that." Norrington said, then sighed. "I'm afraid they have to be kept under observation. You can come take them away in two months."

Bester stared. "What about that one?" he finally asked, pointing at Jack, who had been unnaturally still since the scan. "Can I take him?"

Norrington shook his head.

Bester lowered his hand. "Fine. We'll return to Earth. But I want your personal guarantee, captain, that they'll be here when we return."

Was it her imagination, or did Norrington hesitate an instant before saying, "You have my word. I won't allow them to leave Babylon 5 until you return for them."

Bester seemed satisfied. He turned back to Jack, and said, "Don't trust them, captain. Especially this one." He watched Jack's expressionless face for another few seconds before abruptly turning and walking out the door, quarantine order still in hand.

Norrington waited until he was gone, then gently tapped a button on Zack's console. The doors slid shut behind him with a gentle hiss. He nodded in Jack and Lyta's direction. "Get their cuffs off."

Zack's grin could have eaten a planet as he moved to do just that. _"Nice_ one, captain."

Captain Norrington, for his part, dropped his 'imperturbable starship captain' front long enough to slump against the console. "Thank Doctor Franklin for the work," he said. "I didn't know it was possible to get a quarantine regulation passed so quickly."

Jack bounded to his feet, all previous energy and facial movements seemingly restored as the cuffs fell off. "Wonderful. Captain, I didn't know you wanted us to stick around so badly." He leaned toward Norrington, who stared him down blandly. Jack put his finger to his chin. "I think I've underestimated my own charms again."

Norrington sighed and turned to Zack. "Once the Psi Corps shuttle is through the jumpgate, leave the key out and turn off the cameras."

"Understood, sir."

"As for you," Norrington said, pointing at Jack. "I gave my word that I wouldn't allow you to leave this station. So if you try something like this again, I will do everything in my power to stop you."

Jack stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled, then grinned. "I look forward to it, captain."

For just a moment, Lyta thought a flicker of a smile broke Norrington's expression. But she couldn't be sure. "I'm glad we understand one another."

"I need to see the rest of my people," Jack said. "Don't worry, we'll stay quiet as mousies until Bester's away."

Zack looked at Norrington, who nodded. Zack jerked his head toward the cells in the back, and Jack followed, just off Zack's heels.

Lyta followed them, but hesitated in the doorway. When she turned around, Norrington was rubbing his eyes, shoulders slumped.

"Captain?"

He looked up, was instantly back in military posture. "Miss Alexander?"

"Thank you."

He seemed about to say something, changed his mind, and said, "I hate breaking promises."

She nodded, then turned to follow Jack, already out of sight down the hall.


	19. On the Movements of Telepaths

Lyta watched, over the next few days.

She watched Jack's stolen clippings and coffee plants grow in their tiny hydroponic garden, under golden lamps plugged into carefully-soldered power taps. She watched Reginald's strong, slim fingers measure out fertilizer, dole out water, pull dead leaves away. With her eyes he was thin, tall, quiet, an awkward stub of a nose and muddy green eyes under red-brown hair that he cut himself. To her mind, he was warm and soft, occasionally flickering like foxfire over the tiny forest. He knew each plant by name. Under the quiet songs he hummed, they grew.

She watched the corridors outside from the platform, sometimes, with Josh or Anamaria or Dhareena. Josh had learned origami while in Earthforce, she found out; one day she brought him a small packet of brightly-colored paper, and he grinned and showed her how to fold animals, his big hands suddenly moving with surprising delicacy, using his mind to trace out exactly where the paper needed to be folded. Anamaria laughed at him, until he folded her a braying jackass and tucked one leg into her bandanna. Josh's mind felt like Earthforce blues, like the dust of a hundred battlefields, like the whiskey he'd taken to drinking, off-duty at first, to make the voices go away.

She watched Cotton, who if he had a first name didn't bother with it, who had found a nest of Centauri kritik in one corner of the compound. He pointed out the nest-mother, the older males, the young; to her, they were just tiny pulses of life, but he could tell them apart, listen to their wants, their satisfaction, and convince them to stay away from their food supply and only eat the scraps he saved for them. The tiny mouselike creatures chirped with happiness whenever he came by.

She watched Anamaria and Rosaline, who were so much in love they nearly glowed. Rosaline could make things glow, if she wanted; she had learned how to make people's optic nerves respond as though there were light, and sometimes led the children on chases after fireflies that cast no shadows.

She watched the children, who played games not unlike those she had played, on Mars, under the eye of the Psi Corps.

She watched Jack, never still, fractured and bright.

Occasionally he'd come back from the other parts of Downbelow seriously troubled. "More telepath-lurker altercations," he'd say when she pressed him. "We barter our services to people who want to remember things, or find things, but sometimes other people don't want things remembered, or found. And some people just don't like us." He grinned. "And not all my people are as adept at conflict resolution as I am."

"Meaning most of them can't disappear right under people's noses like you do."

"That is a good trick, isn't it."

"Jack..." She tugged his hands, and he smiled at her. "Jack, I'm worried you'll get hurt."

"Nonsense, love." He tugged back at her, offbalanced her, pulled her into a hug and swung her around. "What can they do to us, eh?"

She watched them bring Reginald in the next day with his hands smashed.

She and Jack took him to medlab, watched Doctor Franklin's team gently repair the bones over agonizing hours. Sometimes Jack would run out into the hallway in bursts of energy, pacing, skipping, shaking his hands. Sometimes he would just sit, still, staring intensely, as though he could will Reginald's bones to regrow by himself.

She wasn't there when Jack led a team to find the man responsible and deliver a gentle explanation of why harming one of the people under Jack's protection was a bad idea. She did come after Zack arrested him, hauled him into a holding cell, cuffed his hands together.

"We didn't even hurt him," Jack said, hands spread as far as he could. "Not like he did Reggie. Just gave him a little fright, that's all."

"He didn't stop screaming for an hour," Zack said, voice dripping anger.

"Mmm." Jack tilted his head back slightly. "Sensitive soul."

"You can't just go around like you own the place, dispensing justice."

Jack put his forefingers to his chin, looking startled for a moment. "And if not us, who? We're good at it. Oh, you can say it violates due process to scan someone, yes, but if they happen to violate their own due process by bragging about said incident to their friends, and some telepath happens by who can tell instantly if they're lying, and tells that they're not, what's to stop that same telepath from dispensing justice later with one or two of his mates, just to keep the peace?"

Zack bared his teeth slightly. "It's not your jurisdiction."

"Ahh. So it's all right for the Rangers to do it, go 'round scaring people and messing them up something permanent in retaliation, but not for us to do a little temporary messing up for the same reasons."

Zack didn't like that. Lyta watched him want to start pacing, wind up just running his hand through his hair. "The Rangers have oversight," he finally snapped. "Who's overseeing you, huh?"

Jack turned his head slightly and looked straight at her, and she thought she'd get lost in those eyes. "She is."

Zack held him overnight, but the lurker confessed to the assault on Reginald, and refused to press charges.

She watched Jack leave, haggard, swaying, running the brim of his hat around his hands over and over. "I hate being locked up with myself," he said when they were out in the corridor. "I don't have anyone else to listen to."

"Or talk to?" she asked.

His smile was thin and wan. "Or talk to."

The others gave them privacy as she took him to his bed, stripped off his shirt, tugged the silk from his hair. He reached up and caught her wrist, caught her eyes. "Lyta..."

"Shh," she said.

"Lyta, love, listen." He was serious, now, impish fire dampened to coals. "I came to this station already half-broken. You know that."

"It's all right, Jack..."

"There are dark corners in my mind I haven't been able to see for years. We might overturn something... nasty."

She had to half-smile, look away, and when she looked back he had such a Jack expression of confusion she wanted to laugh. "Jack, I... I was just about to warn you, about me."

His eyebrows went up.

She took a deep breath. "The Vorlons... I worked for them. They changed me. In here." She put her hand to her temple, then reached out and stroked the side of his face. "I don't know what dark corners I have, either."

"Well." He smiled. "Better to burn the place down than to curse the darkness. C'mon, love. If we wind up destroying each other, let's make sure this whole bunch knows it."


	20. And All Your Broken Mirrors

Once upon a time

      _Once upon a time_

there was a little girl with red hair

      _there was a little boy with dark eyes_

who wanted very much to see an angel

      _who was quiet and observant and always got good marks in school_

who grew up underneath a dome

      _who grew up in a dome on a red world_

who studied hard and turned her mind into the finest diamond

      _who studied hard and wanted so much to please his teachers_

who graduated top of her class

      _who graduated top of his class_

who went to a tiny world in the sky

      _who went on to work for an important government position_

who met an angel, finally

      _who worked for a man who frightened everyone but him_

who heard the angel singing in her head from then on

      _who did his work for the good of everyone_

who was taken home and interrogated about the angel

      _who was still very observant and started learning too much_

who ran away

      _who thought he could tell his boss about everything_

who found the angels again

      _who ran away when he learned he was wrong_

who woke to singing

      _who took the equivalent of a razor to his own mind_

whose eyes are black

      _whose mind is now a fractured mirror_

who remembers them singing to her and floating in something her mind could only recognize as a medical tank and looking out and seeing and understanding somehow that when the Vorlons went and changed people they took them and changed them into telepaths and reseeded them and the telepath gene was something that the Vorlons had coded into them to fight the Shadows because the Shadows were afraid of telepaths and she was now their greatest weapon

      _who is now afraid he's making love to the telepathic equivalent of a hydrogen bomb_

who hasn't really put all this together before now

      _who throws back his head and laughs at the madness of it all_

who buries herself in endless reflections

      _who is trying to remember that snatch of song he once heard_

who doesn't know what is going to come next

      _who doesn't know what is going to come next_

Once upon a time

      _Once upon a time there was_

there was a little girl

      _a little boy who wanted more_

who wanted more than the human race could give.


	21. Moments of Revelation

Lyta wiped hair and sweat out of her eyes, head spinning.

Jack propped himself up on his elbows and hummed absently to himself. After a minute, he started tapping his fingers on the bed, then murmuring lyrics. She could almost make out a few--"mmm... meet again, dunno whmmm.. mmm-mmm when..."

She waited a bit longer, but he didn't seem interested in discussing anything he'd overturned in her mind. And in the meantime, she had something she wanted to talk to him about.

"You were a Psi Cop."

Jack stopped humming and grinned lazily. "Now is that lack of inflection because you seriously don't believe me, or is it because you cannot let yourself believe for an instant that you just had sex with someone who used to be a Psi Cop?"

Lyta narrowed her eyes. "I can't believe that you could have managed the creepy goose-stepping required to be a Psi Cop."

"Can we stop ending all of our sentences with Psi Cop? It's starting to get a bit weary, love." He flopped forward and started running his fingernails up and down the skin of her left arm, collecting drying sweat, teasing messages from her goosebumps. "And in fact I was a bit different when I was working for them. Much less interesting. Not as good in bed. They give out black regulation-issue condoms, you know. With little silver Greek letters on them that spell out 'erastes.'"

She was learning to ignore his tangents. "What were you like, then?"

His hand stilled as he frowned, then he 'pathed her an image: clean-shaven, short-haired, fixing his gloves and badge in the mirror. He looked like a different person. He _smiled_ differently, one of those regulation smirks that they dispensed with the black uniforms and the gloves. It frightened her, and he banished the image with a wave.

"And I suppose it goes without saying my name wasn't Sparrow," he mused. "Oh, no. Picked that up much later. Used to be Sullivan. _Francis."_ He pulled a face. "Bloody useless name. Changed it as soon as I lost the badge."

"And picked up the drunken master kung fu?"

He rocked back and laughed. "Oh, yes. That's the idea, you know. Misdirection as philosophy. I figured nobody'd recognize me after the psychic surgery. Except Bester finally did."

"Is _anything_ about 'Captain' Jack Sparrow real?"

Jack gently placed his fingertips under her chin and brought her face to his. "Oh, yes," he breathed. "Oh, yes. I'm alive, love. I'm more alive and real than I ever was then. And that's my biggest misdirection: that it's all true."

She stared past his eyes into that broken-brilliant-blindness and shivered, a bit.

"Now. Where are my pants?" He pulled back and started hunting around the sheets. "Somewhere. Love, we have to talk about those Vorlons."

Lyta nodded, looked down, found a shirt (his) and pulled it on. "Yes, yes we do."

"You're telling me the Vorlons made us? Telepaths? Made us telepaths?"

"Yes, something like that." She left the top couple buttons undone and flipped her hair out from under the collar. "To fight the Shadows."

"And they're these nasty folk that Sheridan took on."

"Yes."

He'd found his underwear and was on his feet pulling his pants on, hopping a bit on one foot as he untangled the other leg. "So... the Vorlons, then, just wanted cannon fodder, right? Them's as wouldn't talk back to them?"

She sighed, tried to look away. "Basically, yes."

"Hardly sportsmanlike." He meandered around the bed and sat next to her. "I really think we ought to get some sort of physical compensation for our oh-so-useful mercenary services."

"The Vorlons didn't see it that way," she said, bitter. "And they're all gone, now, anyway. Good luck getting compensation out of them."

He pursed his lips. "How about getting a homeworld out of the deal? Don't they have one they're not using any more?"

**NO.**

The answer stabbed through her mind, hard. Jack stared at her, mouth slightly agape, and then said, "Love, it's very disconcerting when y'do that. Yer eyes going black a bit when we were all distracted with other things was bad enough, but I don't think I can keep performing if your eyes go all glowy and your voice reverbs like that."

Lyta moaned and buried her face in her hands. "Sorry. I'm sorry. I can't believe they're _still_ making my life a mess."

"Here, love. It's not that bad. Just... warn a fellow." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, petting her hair. "Now, all right, we can't take the Vorlons' home planet... what about these others, the Shadows?"

"Blew it up."

"Sorry?"

"I blew it up."

Jack's hand stilled on the back of her head. "Ahh... good, good," he finally said. "Anything I can do to help, ah, stave off these planet-exploding tendencies? I mean, assuming that the matter isn't discussed beforehand and everyone doesn't agree that the planet has to go. But, y'know, I like that planet. The one we're orbiting around."

"Don't worry, Jack." She had to smile, a little. "I don't make it a habit. And I had some help from the planet's self-destruct system."

"Oh, wonderful." He grinned. "That's wonderful. So, no Vorlons, no Shadows. Well. There has to be some way we can use this as leverage. Maybe with the Alliance. Or Sheridan; he seems to like us enough."

"What about the captain?"

"Oh, he'd like us better if he'd either just get over his fetish for telepaths or go to bed with me."

"What?" Startled, all thoughts of Vorlons and homeworlds scattered from her head. "What--he what?"

"You've really got to cut it out with those blocks, love, if you're going to miss something that obvious." He was grinning at her. Bastard.

She glared. "You are not going to have sex with Captain Norrington."

"Of course not! I'm even on some sort of list to that effect. But it's fun to tease him." His grin was undiminished. "Jealous?"

Yes--but she took a couple deep breaths and attempted to focus. "What I _meant_ was, the captain's promised to keep you on station until Bester comes back. What happens then?"

Jack's expression took on a distinctly wicked cast. "Then we get to find out exactly how good the captain is at keeping us here."

Lyta let herself smile. "So you have a plan?"

"Not yet." He held up a hand. "But it will be glorious."


	22. All Evidence to the Contrary

By the time he reached his quarters, James Norrington was thoroughly sick of Brakiri ambassadors, Brakiri religion, paranoid Narns and Earth comedy teams of dubious quality. He grabbed the remote and flipped on the station's entertainment channel, aiming for white noise so he could finish the reports--

"And now more of the best of Rebo and Zooty!"

He reflexively changed the channel.

"Zooty-zoot--"

Flip.

"Zooty, you're my hero!"

He shuddered, incremented the channel again.

"We now return our Reebo and Zooty movie marathon, with _Sons of the New Desert!"_

He turned off the set and cast his eyes at the ceiling. "I'm in a very special kind of Hell, aren't I?" he asked rhetorically.

No answer was forthcoming from the ceiling tiles, so he tugged off his jacket and resigned himself to working in silence. Damn but it had been a long day already. Not to mention just about everyone seemed to be taken with Rebo and Zooty, who were giving him a headache.

He mentally added another item to the list of reasons he and John hadn't had a successful marriage: critical differences in sense of humor. If he had to define it, it would be something like: he liked Shaw, and John liked the clowns' bits in Shakespeare. Yes, that was sufficiently apt and self-referential. James smirked to himself, picked up his reports, and realized he wasn't going to get anything done without background noise.

Hesitantly, bracing for impact, he turned the set on again.

"Rrrrrrrrrebo, is that your ass, or mine?"

Oh, God. Off.

Though strangely enough, that _particular_ arrangement of characters on the screen reminded him of a party at the academy wherein he, and John, and several of the other cadets had gotten some vodka--or was it rum?--and a copy of _Road to Morocco._ Someone had been making 'height of human cinema' claims. They had been justly shot down, and a good time was had by all. Well, almost all.

He frowned, and considered the idea that perhaps his distaste for the entire genre was because of a strong association with the worst sex he'd ever had.

No hope for it now, anyway. He tossed his file on the sofa and went to get a shower. Maybe with a clear head...

Clean, in civilian clothes, he scowled at the collection of reports Corwin had compiled and attempted to feel better about the fact that rank allowed him to get the less boring pile. Corwin was still on duty in C&amp;C and would be faced with the same problem later tonight, though he had a higher tolerance for paperwork than James had ever had. Corwin really needed to get out more. Maybe there was something--

His mind was wandering again.

Sighing, he put the folder down and went to fetch his collection of crystals from the side table. There were a couple things in there for this eventuality. He pulled open the drawer and pulled out the box, flipping the lid open smoothly.

The lights dimmed, turned red.

James looked up and frowned. Emergency lighting. He hit his link. "Norrington to maintenance."

There was only silence.

Irritated, he tapped the Babcom screen. "Norrington to maintenance."

"Sorry," the computer replied. "That location is out of range."

What the...

"Norrington to C&amp;C," he tried, reflexively.

"Sorry," the computer said again. "That location is out of range."

Well. _This_ was a problem.

"You could try hitting it," Elizabeth suggested from behind him.

A few seconds later, after a few false starts, he managed to start breathing again and turn around.

There she was: skinny, knees tucked up under her chin and arms wrapped around her legs, the reason he'd rejected Elizabeth Sheridan and all other blonde women named Elizabeth on _principle,_ dammit, smiling, charming, _dead_ Elizabeth Swann. (Cole.) Blown to bits with the rest of Arisia, including her husband, the man she'd left James for. At seventeen. Hence Earthforce, hence John Sheridan, hence not being on Arisia when it was blown to bits. Hence most of James Norrington's life, as it turned out.

She was _still_ beautiful; her hair had darkened over the years to honey-brown, her eyes were warm, and he'd follow that smile off a cliff if she asked... though after a few more breaths he was able to remember that he'd been an exceptionally stupid seventeen-year-old.

"Well?" she said, lifting her chin a fraction from her knees. "Aren't you pleased to see me?"

"You're dead," he pointed out.

She actually pouted. "Is that how you greet all your old girlfriends?"

"Only the dead ones."

"Well, it's the Day of the Dead, isn't it? So I have a perfect right to be here." She got to her feet, turned away from him, looked around the room. "It's a nice place."

"Elizabeth..." he cautiously moved around the couch towards her. "I know I've pointed this out a couple times already, but you're dead."

She shot him a look, frowning. "Of _course_ I'm dead, James. I was there when Arisia colony was incinerated."

"Ah." He held back, trying to figure out how he'd tell if this were some sort of trick. "I'm glad we agree on that."

"You _did_ remember to ask the Brakiri a bit about this festival, right?" She was smiling again, smug. "The bit about the wisdom of the dead and the return of those you've lost?"

"Yes, but--" he shook his head. "Look, when someone says they're going to bring the dead back to life, most of the time that means they ought to be locked up in a padded room with a sleeveless coat."

Her smile only got more wicked. "Well, you can check yourself in after the night's over, but I'd corroborate my story first if I were you."

James sighed, closed his eyes and rubbed them, opened his eyes again (she was still there,) and swept his arm toward his kitchen. "I'm going to have a drink. Would you like something?"

"Scotch and soda, if you have something you don't mind mixing," she said, following him.

"Heretic." He pulled down the bottle of non-emergency scotch and dug the club soda out from the back of his fridge. "So what are you doing here?"

Elizabeth shrugged, rested her elbows on the countertop. "I came to see you."

"Yes, I understand that part." He handed over her drink and poured himself rather more than a shot. "But are you here on some sort of... oh, I don't know, are you here to warn me about some major life-altering occurrence? Advise me with arcane knowledge from beyond the pale?"

"Mmmm," she said negatively around her first mouthful. "No, I think all your major life-altering occurrences have already hit you, and I don't even have this week's lottery numbers."

"I could use those numbers."

"Sorry."

"So why you?" He forced himself to stop fidgeting and look, really look at her again. Her head was cocked to one side quizzically, dark blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, wide, curious brown eyes. He took another breath and asked again, "Why you, when we haven't seen each other in... years?"

She shrugged. "Why not me?"

"Elizabeth..."

"You never did get to yell at me for leaving you." Now she was staring off into space. Suddenly her eyes flicked back to him, and she leaned back and draped her hand across her forehead in a mocking swoon. "At the altar."

He shot her a look. "We'd agreed to wait until after you finished school."

"Shush, my version's more dramatic." She straightened back up and smiled wryly. "And then I had the gall to fall in love with someone else."

"Hardly your fault."

"At the time you were ready to put your fist through a bulkhead."

James shook his head and took a drink. "I was seventeen." He sighed. "Falling in love at seventeen is... it's different. One's heart doesn't have the callouses of cynicism as a shield."

"Mmm." She looked up sadly. "And now you're properly calloused and cynical?"

"Moreso. You helped with that." He said it as gently as he could, but she wouldn't have flinched if he'd shouted. "And then there was the War. The Line."

"Yes. And after that was the last time I ever saw you."

He shrugged. "I... well. The War was hard on everyone."

"You were more of a walking corpse than I am."

That made him laugh. "Well."

Elizabeth held up her glass and gestured at him with it. "And let's see. In the meantime, you'd run off and gotten married."

"For three months."

"And after the war, you moved around a lot, and never wrote home. And finally, ten years later, the entire place went up in flames."

He sighed.

She smirked. "And you felt horribly guilty because you hadn't been home in a decade, and jumped straight back in to work as soon as mandatory bereavement leave was up, and you haven't had a real date in..." she gave him a considering look. "Four years."

James winced, swallowed the rest of his scotch in one go. "Three years."

"James." She set her glass down, came around the counter, and put her hands on her hips challengingly. "When I said I didn't want to marry you, that didn't mean I never wanted to see you again."

"Well, you came back from the dead to see me. That's flattering." He put his own glass on the counter, reached out to rest his hands on her shoulders. She was warm, real, substantial. "So you're here for how long?"

"Until sunrise."

He narrowed his eyes. "And until then I can't contact anyone else, is that it?"

"Well, no." She looked confused for a moment. "It's just that the rest of the station's an awfully long way away."

"Is it, now." He considered that, then maneuvered his way around her and to the Babcom set. "Link mode. Display all systems currently functioning."

The structure that showed up on screen had many fewer nodes than James was really comfortable with. The slice of the station he'd sold to the Brakiri hadn't been all that big, when measured against the whole station, and encompassed mostly red sector and the Brakiri part of green sector. However...

There were several large energy storage nodes still connected, running the emergency ventilation and lights. But the power was also running several systems that really weren't necessary, at least not in this situation...

Trying not to think too hard about what their situation actually _was,_ he ordered, "Shut down links D-11 through F-3 and reroute reclaimed power through epsilon grid."

"Authorization required."

"Captain James Norrington. Pass phrase: 'Dulce et decorum est.'"

A hum, and the lights kicked on to full power. Elizabeth looked around, nodded. "Very nice."

"Thank you. Now to phone home."

"I thought everything was out of range."

"For internal communications, yes." He scanned the list of nodes on the network. "However, Stellarcom should work just fine."

She waited while he doublechecked the list. "Well? What's the problem?"

"Hm? Oh." He sighed. "One can't just call one's own space station long-distance. We'll need to hack into the network. Rather, Mr. Garibaldi will have to hack into the network."

"Who's Mr. Garibaldi?"

"Someone I'd rather not call at ten-thirty at night asking a favor. Oh, well." He cleared the screen, brought up the communications menu. "Michael Garibaldi."

Hmm. From the looks of it, Garibaldi was having a much better night than he was. James cleared his throat, and Michael and the redhead he'd been a breath away from kissing jumped apart. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, Mr. Garibaldi," he said.

"Ahh... no, no, this is just a--just an old friend. Dodger, this is Captain Norrington, captain, this is PFC, er, the late PFC--"

The half-dressed marine snapped to attention. "Durman, Elizabeth, 56927, Killed in Action, SIR!"

Taken aback slightly, James nodded, then turned his attention to Garibaldi. "Mr. Garibaldi, I need to contact C&amp;C. I want you to patch me through the tachyon relay at Proxima back into the Babylon 5 network."

Garibaldi stared at him blankly. "You want me... to hack from Babcom into Stellarcom and back... from my quarters?"

James shrugged innocently. "Or recommend someone more competent currently within the Brakiri zone."

"You have got to be kidding me."

"Hardly. Let me know when you've finished. I want to check a few things with the rest of B5, then make a general announcement that everything is under control. Which it will be." He closed the screen on Garibaldi's expression, turned to look at Elizabeth. "Well."

She smirked at him. "Let me guess. You're now wishing that I was dressed only in one of your abandoned shirts."

... appealing as the image was, he banished it before his brain short-circuited. "Actually, I wasn't."

Her eyes crinkled with laughter, then softened. "You're a good man, James."

_Just not good enough for you,_ he thought, then stopped thinking, quickly.

"So," she said, sitting down on the sofa with one leg tucked under her. "Why'd you get divorced?"

He stared. "What?"

She smiled. "We have fifteen years' worth of news to catch up on, so we have to start somewhere. And you never did tell me that story."

"Ha," he said bitterly. "There wasn't much to tell. It didn't work out."

He sat across from her. She tilted her head and frowned. "Were you fighting?"

"Over everything." He sighed. "The stupider things, mostly."

She nodded sympathetically and opened her mouth to say something and he blurted "It was a stupid idea to get married in the first place; I did it for the worst reasons possible."

After a moment of stunned silence she asked, "What reasons?"

"Mostly because I was terrified it wouldn't work out."

Elizabeth stared at him, considering, then said, "You're right, that's a very bad reason to get married."

He laughed. "Well, it's not like we weren't in love... for about four months, in fact, only two of which actually overlapped the time we were connubially linked."

"You married this man after knowing him for two months?"

"I'd known him a bit longer. After _dating_ him for two months."

"And he went for it?" She grinned teasingly. "Sucker."

"President of the Interstellar Alliance," he chided.

"Double sucker." Suddenly, she frowned. "You have been seeing other women, since then, occasionally. Right?"

"I--yes. Wait," he smirked, "You're not worried you frightened me to the other side, are you?"

She rolled her eyes. "The thought did occur."

"I would have thought I'd given you plenty of evidence for my interest in the fairer sex."

"One can always have singular exceptions to the rule."

"I'll admit that you're singular, and exceptional, but the uniform does manage to attract women in droves."

"Oh?" She batted her eyes. "And do the droves of women make up for everything?"

She was dead. He might as well give her the honest answer. "No."

She looked at him very seriously. "James. It's been fifteen years."

"I know."

She opened her mouth to chide him again, but stopped and sat back, contemplating him. He couldn't watch her watching him. He stood and started pacing in front of the babcom set, wishing Garibaldi would call back with the news he was done with the link so he could call Sheridan, ex-husband, four months of bliss and one month of property damage, and what had Elizabeth so quiet, anyway?

"I'm sorry," she said.

He sighed. "It's not your fault."

"I really did think I was in love with you. That we would be happy together. That everything was going to work out." She had her legs bent up in front of her again, knees under her chin, arms wrapped around her shins. "I'd told myself it for ages: you were going to get out, you were going to take me with you."

"And instead, you ran off with Marcus' baby brother."

"There we go, there's some of that bitterness. Let it out."

"Did you go with him when he joined the Rangers?"

She grinned. "Of course I did! God, that was amazing. Will and I just meant to visit, but after Entil'zha asked us to stay..." She shrugged, beaming. "It was the most intense experience of my life."

"So you actually made it all the way."

"Oh, yes. Graduated, stick, pin and all." She cocked her head to the side. "Speaking of which, there's a package that's finally going to get to you tomorrow."

He stared. "What?"

"Don't worry, I want you to have it." She smirked at his expression.

He felt a brief moment of trepidation as he asked, "What is it?"

"You'll find out tomorrow!" Another grin. "If I tell you now it'll ruin the surprise."

He was going to give her his frank opinion of surprises when his link chirped. Giving her his best annoyed look, he answered, "Yes?"

"Captain," came Mr. Garibaldi's overly-cheerful salutation, "you have your Stellarcom link. It took me seventeen minutes; goodnight."

The signal closed before he had time to respond. Elizabeth was trying unsuccessfully to hide her giggles at his exasperated look. "Time to call home, then?"

"Indeed." He stepped in front of the com screen and ordered, "Babylon 5 command and control."

It took a few moments to get signal. When the link finally established, he was treated to a grainy image of his _very_ startled second in command. "Captain! We've been worried--we lost contact with your entire section."

"Yes, it's been... entertaining over here, as well." He grimaced. "Remind me never to negotiate with the Brakiri without an expert in xenoanthropology nearby again. Is the rest of the station all right?"

Corwin was visibly calming himself down. "Yes, sir. Remarkably stable for missing a square mile of residential quarters."

"All right. Get me the President; I need to check in with him."

"Just a minute." The screen went blank. After slightly less than a minute John's face appeared on the screen.

"Captain. ... Where exactly are you calling from?"

He raised an eyebrow. "My quarters... which at the moment are somewhere other than the station."

"What happened?"

"Suddenly, terms of that agreement with the Brakiri are coming back to me," James said. "Phrases like 'The delineated section of Babylon 5 shall be a part of Brakiri homeworld territory in all respects.' I didn't think they meant it literally. In any case, I suspect things will return to normal when the agreement terminates, which is in..." he checked the clock. "Eight hours."

John nodded a couple times. "When we contacted the Brakiri homeworld, they told us the same thing. Are you all right?"

Dead ex-fiancee aside. "Yes, Mr. President. Also, I spoke to Mr. Garibaldi, and he seems all right. I think everyone here is quite safe." A burst of static covered John's face on the last phrase.

"Your signal's breaking up." John's eyes slipped sideways and he frowned, startled. "Who--"

Elizabeth had snuck over and was standing just behind his left shoulder. She grinned at James' look. He sighed. "Elizabeth, John; John, Elizabeth. We'll continue this conversation in the morning, when this is over." Before John (or Elizabeth) could protest, he closed the signal.

She quirked her eyebrows. "So that was John Sheridan?"

"Yes," he admitted as he went to look for his uniform jacket. "Yes, it was."

Elizabeth mulled that over as he dug the jacket back out of his closet. "I like the beard."

"He didn't have it when we were together."

"Pity. You know," she said brightly, _"You'd_ look good with a beard."

He snorted, closed the doors to his bedroom, and pulled the jacket on. "I look like... like..."

"Like a bit of a scoundrel?"

He paused in zipping up his jacket to stare. "Why is that a good thing?"

She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "I'll explain later. Why the uniform?"

"I'm going to make an announcement to the rest of this section, explaining that things are under control, they don't need to panic, and things will return to normal by morning." He straightened his collar. "And people respond to the uniform."

"Oh, very well."

He made his statement as concise as he could manage. He hoped Ambassador Kullenbrak, whatever he thought of it, would take the announcement as foreshadowing of an unpleasant discussion the next day. It was always sporting to give one's opponent fair warning.

He shut off the screen, sighed, removed the jacket again. Behind him, Elizabeth cleared her throat.

He turned around. She was leaning against one of the sliding doors of the partition, looking smug. "James," she said, then held up what she'd been hiding behind her back. "I never knew."

Oh, God. "You know," he said, "some things are kept in locked boxes in the bottom of one's closet for a reason."

She uncurled the whip, letting the tip whisper against the floor, and hefted the handle experimentally. "Then you should really stop using my birthday as a lock code, now shouldn't you?"

"Give me that." He reached out and stepped closer. She stepped backwards, still smirking. "Elizabeth..."

"It's really very nice. Where'd you get it?" She would not stop running the braid through her other hand.

"Ex-girlfriend," he admitted. On her look, he reluctantly said, "One of the ones who swooned over the uniform. Only it turned out that the uniform she was really interested in was a few hundred years out of date." He finally managed to grab the handle from her, and wound the braid back into a tight coil.

She pouted. "You're no fun."

"I'll have you know I was quite a lot of fun," he said, "certainly more than she was."

She giggled. He pushed past her and secured the signal whip back in the box where it belonged. Then he gestured back at the sitting room. "Come on. Let's go back to swapping stories."

"I want to hear more about this girlfriend," she said as he retrieved their drinks, and the bottle, from the bar.

"She wasn't all that interesting." He sat on the couch across from her, handed her glass over. "I want to hear more about the Rangers."

She smiled, warmly, and raised her glass. "All right."

He settled back as she started talking. "Well, we'd just done a whirlwind tour of the Solar system, and wanted to see something new. And Minbar was just about as new as we could get. So we booked passage to Babylon 5 in the smallest hold we could find, and we were off..."


	23. Catching Up

Strangely enough, Captain Norrington managed to put the fear of Earthforce justice into Ambassador Kullenbrak without any additional frustration. He actually found himself humming as he went to see Sheridan about debriefing the previous night's... adventure.

"So... who was that in your quarters?" was the first _real_ question John asked him.

He should have expected it, but the question caught him off guard anyway. "That... was Elizabeth."

"The one who..."

"Yes."

"Hunh." They had gone on a short walking tour of the formerly-Brakiri section while John had gone over the normal questions: was everyone all right, did Ambassador Kullenbrak give a satisfactory apology, what had actually happened; and now they were back at John's office. "I thought..."

"She died on Arisia, with everyone else. Yes."

"Captain, I still don't know if I believe all this."

James sighed, took one of the chairs in front of Sheridan's desk. "Well, sir, I don't think that hallucinations or telepathic projections can be broadcast over Stellarcom."

"Hmm."

"And before I forget..." Sheridan looked up. James hesitated, then said, "She gave me a message for you, from someone named Kosh."

It wasn't the first time he'd seen John look this startled, but the last time had involved the word 'divorce', so it had been a while. "I... what was the message?"

"'When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.'" He watched John digest that, then asked, "Kosh was the Vorlon ambassador to Babylon 5, wasn't he?"

"Yes, he was." John looked... abstracted. "Uh, thank you, captain. I'm sure you have plenty of things to tend to."

Clumsy as it was, a dismissal was still a dismissal. Norrington nodded and left Sheridan musing.

It was a full day of catching up, mending tempers, a brief and interesting conversation with G'Kar, and a brief hello and goodbye to Lennier, who looked even more abstracted than Sheridan had. It wasn't until late in the day that he remembered the package Elizabeth had mentioned. When he checked his messages, he found a notice that the Earthforce postal service was holding a package for him.

"Fifteen credits," Farquaha, the head supervisor of the post office, said as he handed over a cubic-decimeter box.

James idly touched the transit record on top of the box. "This has been chasing me a while," he remarked. The point of origin came up, and he raised an eyebrow. "And it was sent from this office."

"Yeah, well," the postman said, suddenly nervous under his brusque exterior. "You can't expect everything to go perfectly, y'know. We've been through two wars, here."

James swiped his credit chit without further comment.

He pondered going home and opening the package there, but as he passed Earhart's, he realized that he really wanted a drink, and some company that didn't remind him of past ghosts. He stepped inside and was immediately hailed by Dr. Franklin.

"Captain!" Franklin was at a table with Garibaldi, of course, but for once the head of covert intel didn't seem unhappy at seeing him. "Hey, join us!"

As good an invitation as he was ever going to get. Mr. Allan was on his way back from the bar, and made it back to the table at the same time he did. "Hey, captain. What's that?"

James set the box on the table and poked the remarkable list of places it had been routed through again. "I have no idea, but it was sent from here and has been following me through the mail for the last three years."

"Earthforce postal service at its finest," Garibaldi said. "Who's it from?"

"No name, no return address," James said. "Look, it was carted out to the Vega colony, hitched a ride on the Explorer for a while, then made its way to Geneva, then back to the Rim... this is an amazing display of bureaucratic failure."

"Well, I hope it wasn't even slightly perishable," Allan said. "C'mon, open it."

James tried to look innocent. "I don't know if that's such a good idea..."

"Here," Franklin said, pushing his drink across the table. "Drink this, and then open it."

"Is that your medical advice, doctor?"

"Oh, yeah."

He smirked, took a drink, then thumbed open the catch. The flaps opened up to reveal a folded piece of paper. Possibly a packing list... he pulled it off and stared.

"Well?" Franklin demanded as Allan leaned over to see and grunted in surprise. "What is it?"

James reached in and pulled out the silver cylinder. It was a denn'bok, a Ranger's weapon. Who...

_Don't worry. I want you to have it..._

He put the closed pike on the table and opened the letter.

_James,_

I know we haven't spoken in a long time, and I'm sure you've heard by now, but the colony has been destroyed. They're calling it an accident, equipment failure, but I saw something_ attack us._

Everyone's dead. Will and Elizabeth, too; they'd just come to visit from their trip to Minbar. This was hers. I don't know what she wanted done with it, but while she was here she often spoke of trying to find you and talk, for old times' sake, and I'm sure she'd be happy to know you had it.

I'm going to Minbar to find out what they were mixed up in. Whatever it was, they're fighting what destroyed our home. If I ever do find you, I owe you a drink, or several. Take care of yourself.

\- Marcus.

It was terse, awkward, much like any correspondence he'd had with home. And it was three years out of date, and now Marcus was dead.

"Well?" Franklin said.

James cleared his throat. "Marcus sent it," he said. "It was Elizabeth's."

That earned him a number of astonished looks. "Who's Elizabeth?" Garibaldi finally asked.

"Ex-fiancee," he admitted, though he'd meant to say something like _someone I knew_ or _an old friend from home._ "She wound up marrying Marcus' little brother. Running off. Became a Ranger." He picked up the denn'bok again, spun it in his fingers. The others were exchanging looks.

Allan cleared his throat. "So, captain, I heard a rumor..."

James gave Garibaldi a glare. Garibaldi, for his part, put on his very best 'who, me?' face.

"Yes?" he said when Allan trailed off.

Zack took a sip of his drink and continued, "Well, I heard an unsubstantiated rumor from an anonymous source that you and President Sheridan were involved at some point."

"Married, three months, twenty years ago," James ticked off on his fingers. Really, the waning embarrassment was worth it for the look on Allan's face. "Why, looking for some tips to wrest him away from Delenn? Homewrecker."

Zack spluttered into his drink. Franklin snickered, then said, "You have to admit, captain, you're sort of... really not his type. Y'know, considering."

"Considering Delenn and Anna, yes, I know."

"You knew Anna?"

James nodded. "Yes, she was Liz Sheridan's best friend. I met her a few times. Nice girl."

"Hmm," Garibaldi said, then elaborated, "I only met her the one time, when she was controlled by the Shadows."

James had been halfway through a drink. He choked, considered the burning sensation of ethanol in his sinuses, and said, "All right, I haven't heard that story. What's this?"

That kicked off a round of war stories. By the time the night was over, he knew considerably more about the Shadow War than had made it into his briefings. And he'd let on a few more things about the Acheron's duties on the border of Centauri space than Earthdome was probably willing to declassify. But he'd felt welcome, finally, for the first time since coming on station.

Back in his quarters, he held the fighting pike out, gingerly thumbed the catch. It snapped open smoothly. He ran his fingers over its surface, then collapsed it again.

_Stick, pin and all,_ he thought. Smiling, he left the pike on his table and went to get ready for sleep.


	24. Renegotiating Hostilities

"Excuse me. Vir Cotto, is it not?"

Vir didn't know the Narn who was trying to get his attention--well, he'd seen him around, mostly in the presence of G'Kar, who out of all the Narn Vir had ever met was the most congenial--Vir attempted to corral his stray thoughts and answer the question. "Yes?"

"I am Ta'Lon, G'Kar's... assistant, I suppose." Ta'Lon made a small bow. "Since G'Kar is accompanying your Prime Minister back to Centauri Prime, he asked me to speak for Narn at any Alliance meetings. I felt it best to introduce myself."

"Ahh... yes. Yes. Hi. Nice to meet you." Vir smiled, shakily, and resettled his document folder in his hands. While he wasn't precisely uncomfortable, he was far from feeling settled in this temporary position. Even the time he'd spent on Minbar, though helpful, wasn't making taking up Londo's work, even for the moment, easy or pleasant.

This was the first meeting he'd been to in quite some time without Londo. He didn't anticipate anything too strenuous--the agenda concerned trade among the former non-aligned worlds, and the Centauri positions had been cleanly marked out for him. But it was nervewracking, all the same, taking up Londo's chair in the semicircle, next to Ta'Lon, in a seating arrangement planned by Delenn for some symbolic unity purposes. He supposed it was a good thing to put him next to a Narn in order to prove they could refrain from clawing each other's eyes out, but at the moment he was just glad to be seated next to someone even more out of place than he was.

Half an hour later, Vir was trying to keep from falling asleep.

"... Absolutely out of the question," Ambassador... someone, of the Brakiri, was saying. Kullenbrak. "There have to be provisions for keeping our religious artifacts out of circulation or the Brakiri government will not sign!"

"Just because you don't have an interest in scholarship of other race's beliefs, ambassador, doesn't mean the rest of us don't want to trade, and learn," Ambassador Tal of the Hyach said.

"Yes," Kullenbrak sneered. "I suppose your race would like to find a few new gods to study. Why don't you talk with the Centauri? They seem to have a few extras."

Vir looked up, startled, hoping desperately that nobody would take Kullenbrak up on that suggestion.

"If I can request a temporary tabling of all issues of a religious nature for a moment," a voice came from the doorway, "I have a motion I'd like to bring before the assembly."

Everyone turned to stare at the outlandishly dressed human in the doorway. Vir allowed himself to stare at Lyta, too, who was standing behind him and slightly to one side.

Sheridan, who had picked up his gavel after Kullenbrak's last statement, set it down very carefully and looked back at the intruder. "Mister Sparrow," he said, "What on Earth--"

Mister Sparrow held up a hand. "We're not on Earth, Mr. President," he said. "And that, I think you'll agree, is part of the point."

Sheridan's shoulders straightened, and he glared at Sparrow, who sauntered toward the dias in a manner that reminded Vir uncomfortably of Cartagia. "I'm here," he said, "on behalf of the telepath colony in Downbelow." He looked significantly around the room, then held up his hands. "In fact, on behalf of all telepaths. Everywhere. I am here," he turned to face Sheridan again, hand on chest, "to take up the absent responsibilities of the representative of the Vorlon Empire."

Sheridan stared, openmouthed, for a good few seconds before he recovered and snapped, "On whose authority?"

That seemed to set Sparrow back for a moment. He looked around, then pointed at Lyta. "Hers. As she's the last... formal representative of the Vorlons we've still got around." He looked at the bewildered assembly and grinned. "She _worked_ for the Vorlons for a year; went to their homeworld. The only one left in the galaxy who's done that, savvy?"

"That does not qualify you," Delenn said angrily.

Vir swallowed. If Delenn was angry... well, the Minbari and the Vorlons had always been close, before that whole Planet Killer thing, so maybe there was some bad blood there.

"But what she learned there does," Sparrow said, holding up a finger. He pointed at his temple. "All us telepaths, who were so helpful in that war against the Shadows you had, we were built by the Vorlons. Seeded amongst all the races so they'd have us around when they needed us. Called to arms for a war we didn't have any warning for, and they never even gave us instructions on how to fight it. Not very sociable." He seemed to get distracted for a second, then focused back on the ambassadors. "So! We're here to get formal recognition, and then we'll start a plan of, y'know, taking over Vorlon affairs, looking up the stuff they left behind--"

That was as far as he got before people started shouting.

Vir buried his head in his hands as Sheridan banged the gavel, several times, without effect. Ta'Lon leaned over and murmured, "What, exactly, are we witnessing?"

"A diplomatic catastrophe of the highest possible order," Vir said.

"Who is the human?"

"The leader of a group of telepaths who have been living on the station. They caused a bit of a stir a few weeks ago, but Sheridan gave them his blessing to remain."

"And now he wants to be a Vorlon?"

Vir shrugged. "With some humans, I've learned to stop asking."

"I see." Ta'Lon cocked his head to one side and observed Sparrow and Ambassador Kullenbrak shouting into each other's faces from an inch apart, both gesticulating and pointing madly. "Perhaps it is the telepath gene that's causing him to be so... unruly."

"Maybe," Vir agreed. "There are stories of great, mad seers on Centauri Prime staggering into court in fits, demanding the Emperor do something or kill someone."

"Hmm," Ta'Lon said. Lyta had bodily interposed herself between Sparrow and Kullenbrak and was shouting, herself. "Maybe it's for the best that Narn has no telepaths, and we can absent ourselves from this discussion in good conscience."

Vir nodded, then looked at Ta'Lon, startled. "You're not suggesting _I_ jump in."

"The Centauri have always led the way in interstellar peace and understanding," Ta'Lon said, with only the barest fraction of a smile. "I seek to learn from your example."

Vir pursed his lips and looked back at the cacophony. Lyta had backed Sparrow up far enough that he was within shouting range of Sheridan and Delenn, and he was back to back with Lyta doing that while she argued with Kullenbrak.

"You know," he said, "Given the history of the Centauri with the Vorlon Empire, I'm going to have to recuse myself from this debate."

"Oh?" Ta'Lon frowned, curious. "And what history is that?"

"They tried to blow up our planet." Ta'Lon stared at him blankly. He shrugged again. "It was business. Nothing personal."

"I... see." Ta'Lon looked back at the fracas. After a minute, he said, "I suppose the cultural artifact trade negotiations have been tabled."

"I suppose so." Vir tapped his fingers against his document folder. "Well, while we're here... I wanted to talk about helping with the effort to reunite families on Narn and abroad, after the occupation," he said. "I've been doing some work on my own, and with G'Kar, but..."

"Yes, he mentioned." Ta'Lon took another look at the mass of angry ambassadors. "What say we absent ourselves, find someplace where we can have a drink, and discuss it."

"I think that's a wise diplomatic move," Vir agreed. Nobody else missed them when they were gone.


	25. Imminent Starfall

"He did WHAT?"

Ambassador Kullenbrak was taken aback. Norrington didn't blame him. "I'm sorry, captain," the Brakiri said. "I thought you knew."

"I wish I had." He resisted the temptation to rub his eyes. "I might have been able to stop this foolishness before it started. He claimed to be a representative of the _Vorlons?"_

"Yes," Kullenbrak said.

James shook his head again. "Good God."

"I have to say, several of my colleagues have been preparing formal complaints for your government." Kullenbrak was looking at him with concern. "Frankly, that was going to be my plan as well."

"Earthgov had nothing to do with this," he said. "I assure you, this is all Sparrow's madness."

"Well." Kullenbrak smiled. "In any case, I wanted you to know before I went to any higher authorities."

"Thanks for the warning." He grimaced. Psi Cops. The place was going to be crawling with Psi Cops. "One way or another, ambassador, soon you won't have to hear any more about it."

He actually got Kullenbrak to agree to show him the text of his message to Earth before sending it. That was the only reprieve he had. Thirty seconds after the ambassador left, Sheridan showed up nearly breathing smoke.

"Captain, we have a situation," he said.

"Yes," he agreed. "Sparrow's finally gone completely mad."

That set Sheridan back a bit. "You heard?"

"Just a minute ago. Ambassador Kullenbrak stopped by on his way to file a formal complaint with Earthgov."

"Earthgov." Sheridan looked stricken. "He can't think that Earth set him up to this?"

James shrugged. "I don't know what he or the other ambassadors think. I wasn't there."

"Be grateful."

"But Sparrow is human, and that's a problem."

"Psi Corps," Sheridan growled.

"Indeed."

"I'm about ready to hand them over without a fuss."

James raised his eyebrows. "Do you mean that? It would make my job easier."

Sheridan glared. "You don't want to just hand them over to Bester."

"No." He sighed. "I don't. I've heard enough about the Psi Corps to not want to send anyone back into their suffocating embrace. But I'm going to have to comply."

"Can't we get them out of Earth's jurisdiction? Somehow?"

James leaned back and frowned. "Well, if you convince the Alliance to recognize their Vorlon government in absentia, yes. Otherwise we're stuck."

"Absolutely not," Sheridan said.

"Then we're stuck."

Sheridan sighed. James was about to ask what Sparrow's whole justification for the Vorlon idea was when his link chirped. Grimacing slightly, he answered it. "Yes?"

"Captain, there's a message for you on Stellarcom. It's Senator Jayachandran."

He looked up at Sheridan, who nodded and headed for the door. "All right, put her through."

Samantha Jayachandran was a slight woman, but she effectively radiated irritation even across light-years. "Captain. I've been getting some very interesting complaints forwarded to me from the general area of your station."

James managed not to wince. "The telepaths."

"Yes. The telepaths. Who by all rights ought to be under Psi Corps lock and key."

"Indeed."

"Yes. 'Indeed', you say, but I found the investigating Psi Cop's report on the subject, and station personnel didn't exactly jump to lend a hand." She leaned forward into the camera. "Well, captain, the Psi Corps had a team nearby, and they are going to be in your space in five hours. So get ready to turn them over. And don't worry about their case histories; they'll be subject to shipboard quarantine before their trial."

He swallowed. It felt like someone had slipped chips of depleted uranium in with his breakfast, suddenly. "Understood, senator."

"Good. Earthdome out." The screen went back to the Babcom logo. James took a deep breath, then went out to find Corwin.

The lieutenant commander was usually in the Zocalo before his C&amp;C shift; James had passed him occasionally sitting at the cafe bar or at a table with a book, or a data pad, or a pile of paperwork. This time, as he approached the cafe, he saw his second in command seated across from, of all things, the female of the species.

Another species, he corrected himself as he got a bit closer. Centauri. In fact, he thought he recognized the dancing girl who had monopolized Corwin at Londo's farewell party.

"... I get jealous, that's all," Corwin was saying as James reached earshot.

"David, honey, if they don't look at me like that I don't get _paid._ It's my _job."_

Yes, same girl.

Corwin spotted him, and got to his feet. "Captain, uh..."

"Sorry to disturb you," James said, nodding courteously at the girl, "but we have a problem." He looked back at Corwin, who was startled but attentive. "Psi Cops are on their way here."

"I thought--"

"Our telepath situation got suddenly more urgent a few hours ago."

Corwin nodded. "How long do we have?"

"Five hours."

"Hell." He turned, chagrined, to his date. "Fiala, I have to--"

"It's all right." Fiala got to her feet and smiled. "Call me when it's over, okay?"

James politely turned away as she got on tiptoe to kiss Corwin on the cheek. Then he gestured in the direction of the lift, and they left the flow of human (and alien) traffic.

"Nice girl," he commented as they waited for the tube.

"Yeah," Corwin agreed. "I met her at Londo's party. She likes me." He sounded more bewildered than anything.

James couldn't help smirking. "Well. Good luck."

"Thanks, I'll need it," Corwin said seriously. The lift emptied out as they got in. After James told it to take them to blue sector, Corwin asked, very earnestly, "Girls like roses, right?"

He turned to look at Corwin, who was managing to look equal parts confused and nervous. "Yes," he answered, "most women like roses. In my experience."

For some reason, this only made Corwin's nervousness worse. "I am so lost," he muttered.

James felt a swell of sympathy. "Try seeing if she likes coffee," he suggested.

"Hey, that's a good idea." Corwin perked up as they got off the lift and headed to C&amp;C. "Y'know, someone was tampering with those plants."

"Telepaths."

Corwin looked scandalized. "And the President says we can't turn them over?"

"Not on your life." When they got to C&amp;C, he took the stairs to his console and briefly checked the local traffic. One White Star, most of its crew on station, a convoy of Brakiri traders, assorted diplomatic couriers and passenger shuttles. "We're going to need priority clearance for the Psi Cops when they get here."

"I'll see to it." Corwin hesitated, then said, "Out of curiosity, sir, what _are_ we going to do when they get here?"

James shook his head. "You know, lieutenant commander, I haven't the faintest idea."

* * *

Norrington was on his way to talk to Sheridan when Mr. Allan caught up with him. "Hey, captain," he said, "the teeps have all barricaded themselves in Downbelow. They've sealed up the area, aren't letting anyone in."

James regarded him with narrowed eyes. "What else did they tell you?"

Allan grimaced. "Nothing. I didn't even really talk to them. Just had Sparrow shouting at me."

"Damn." He sighed. "It sounds like they're not interested in figuring out a compromise."

"You'd think they want one, with the way the situation has gone meltdown."

"One would think."

They reached Sheridan's office and were stopped by the officer outside. "Sorry," the woman said, "he's with the Rangers."

Norrington nodded, and he and Allan backed off a pace. "The Psi Corps is going to demand we force our way in," he said.

Allan looked grim. "I know."

"Well, we'll hold off on suggesting it. I don't want to blow holes in my station, even through interior doors."

"Yeah, I hear ya, captain. I'll head back to security, see if I can't come up with a compromise that the teeps will _listen_ to."

"Good. Good luck." Allan nodded and headed back down the corridor. James waited away from the door, refusing to allow himself to pace, mind racing into white noise.

Finally, two Rangers, both Minbari, came out of the office and started down the corridor. James nodded at them and started to step past.

"Captain Norrington," one of them said. He stopped and looked up. The Minbari was tall, slender, and looking at him with narrowed eyes. "You were here for Adra'shok Tannier's mora'dum, weren't you?"

He was taken slightly aback. "I was here, though I didn't directly oversee any of it. That was Anla'shok business."

"Yes," the Minbari said. "Tannier is of my clan. I wished to know of his... honor."

"As far as I can tell, he did very well," he said.

The Minbari nodded, and started to turn away.

Suddenly slightly crazy, he asked, "Pardon, but... those denn'boks."

The Ranger turned back, curious.

"Do you give lessons?"

He frowned. "The denn'bok is a Minbari weapon, not allowed to be used by outsiders."

"But you train human Rangers."

"A very infrequent exception." His frown had turned into a scowl. "Why do you ask?"

Norrington sighed. "Well, I was given one, and thought I should learn to use it."

Both the Minbari looked as though James had just suggested sacrificing them, their mothers, and the elders of their clan on the altar to the Centauri goddess of poorly executed military strategy. "The ownership of a denn'bok..." the one who had been speaking stammered, "you are not... one is not..."

Apparently, he'd just managed to step on a sensitive intercultural toe. "I got it as a gift from a friend."

The two Rangers stared at him, turning an apoplectic shade of purple, before they as one turned away and swept down the hallway in robe-fluttering pique.

"Captain?"

He looked up at Sheridan and sighed. "I really hope I didn't just start another war."

Sheridan closed his eyes and drew his eyebrows together in a theatrical wince. "That would be just what we need with everything going on right now."

"Indeed." James gestured back at Sheridan's office. "Let me tell you the real bad news, instead."


	26. Swirling Ashes

_Bester,_ Captain Norrington thought several hours later, watching the Psi Cop and the Bloodhounds disembark. _Of course it had to be Bester. Irony and the universe wouldn't stand for anything else._

"Captain," Bester said, smirking. "I believe you have a rogue telepath problem. And an injunction from Earthgov for on-board quarantine proceedings."

"Yes," Norrington agreed. "They've holed themselves up in Downbelow and aren't coming out for love or money."

"Then we'll have to go get them."

Norrington winced. "I'd rather not go burning holes through my bulkheads. This station's had enough of that already."

"I'm sorry to disturb your delicate sensibilities, captain," Bester said, stepping forward, menace frosting his voice. "But these people are dangerous."

"And swiftly running out of food and fresh water," Norrington pointed out. "We should be able to wait them out if we keep a close watch, and don't allow them to overwhelm us psychically."

Bester smiled, like a shark amused by a particularly arrogant herring. "And that's where we come in, is it."

"I was hoping for cooperation."

"You're not likely to get any from them, captain," Bester pointed out. "Let's plan a few extra strategies in case the 'wait until they come out' one doesn't work."

Norrington smiled, as politely as he could, and gestured toward his office.

* * *

David Corwin had to admit that Psi Cops, especially Bester, freaked him out a little. Now that he was a full member of the command staff, he'd gained a lot of confidence working with argumentative people he'd avoided in the past: the Narn, the Centauri, the Drazi. But with all the trouble Babylon 5 had had in the past few years with the Psi Corps, not to mention their recent problems, he'd grown a bit leery of the black-suited figure that Psi Corps usually sent to the station. So when Captain Norrington asked him to deal with the Psi Corps representatives from the safe confines of C&amp;C, he didn't argue, and let the captain and Mr. Allan take care of the closed-meeting-with-the-Psi-Cop part of the equation.

So it was with some trepidation that he answered the captain's summons to that same meeting. "Captain?"

Captain Norrington waved him in. He was standing behind his desk, and Bester was lounging in one of the visitor's chairs. Corwin privately considered a few neo-Freudian explanations for their stances, mostly having to do with their respective heights while standing, then decided he'd be a lot happier on his feet, too.

"Lieutenant Commander. I believe you know Mr. Bester." Captain Norrington waited for him to nod at the Psi Cop, who smiled like a contented cat in response. "We've been trying to come up with some compromises that both the telepaths and Earthgov would be willing to honor."

Corwin privately put the odds of any such compromise existing asymptotically approaching zero. From their expressions, the captain and Bester agreed with him.

"I'd like you to take our suggestions to the telepaths and talk with them."

He blinked in surprise. "Why me, sir?"

Captain Norrington wasn't exactly thrilled with the question; Captain Norrington was a salute-and-follow-orders kind of guy, while Babylon 5 was more of a understand-your-orders-so-we-don't-accidentally-start-a-war kind of place. "I need to keep the channels open to Earthgov. I think they'll be willing to talk to you."

"And if they aren't?"

"We blast our way in." Captain Norrington looked over at Bester, not so much warningly as resignedly. "That's a last resort."

"Yes, sir. What kind of compromises are we talking?"

So that was what got him to leave the safe confines of the ops dome and head down into Downbelow, farther into the bowels of the station than he'd been in a long time. The way to the telepaths' place was more or less lined with security personnel, and he was escorted by Sergeant La'Nad, a female Narn with a scar across her forehead from the hand-to-hand fighting when Clark's forces had boarded two years ago.

There was an observation post put up next to the sealed pressure door, and three officers and two of Bester's Bloodhounds were perching on it, covering the door and the hallway. At his look, La'Nad explained, "The telepaths put it up, but we've commandeered it." She didn't look excited about the Bloodhounds, but she didn't say anything.

Corwin looked at the pressure door beyond. "All right. Is the PA in there working?"

"Better; the teeps rigged up a two-way video unit." She pointed to the right of the door, where the screen from a Babcom unit and a green button had been rigged together with unassuming skill.

"Have you tried it?"

"The chief did, last time he was down here, when he got sick of yelling over the PA. They still weren't interested in listening, but the wiring functions."

"All right," he said, stepping up to the screen. "Let's see who's home."

As snappy lines went, it was no 'Ivanova is God,' but he was still getting used to the second-in-command gig.

The screen flickered on when he punched the button. After a few moments of static, the face of one of Sparrow's telepaths--a younger man, one Corwin didn't know personally, not that he knew any of them personally--appeared to scrutinize him. The teep gave a jerk of the head and said, "I suppose you want to speak with his nibs."

"Yeeeeeah," David said, unable to keep the discomfort out of the first vowel of his response. "I'm here to negotiate."

"How wonderful," the teep said, deadpan. "One moment."

The teep moved off. Corwin attempted to get a look at the area behind the door, but someone had set up some curtains and all he could see was folds of fabric. After a short wait, the grinning face of one Jack Sparrow, telepath and troublemaker, swam into view.

"Well, hello, there. So you're Norrington's right-hand man, then?"

"I'm Lieutenant Commander Corwin, second in command," Corwin said, not exactly comfortable with being sized up by this character. "I'm here to discuss terms."

"Terms?" Sparrow looked almost affronted. "We want a homeworld. You want us in the hands of Psi Corps." He grinned, in a way that suggested sympathy with the pains of the universe. "What's to discuss?"

"Well, we're trying to come up with some other options. That's what I'm here to discuss. Nobody on the command staff is exactly eager to turn you over to the Psi Corps."

"I believe we have President Sheridan's personal decree to that effect." Sparrow's smile turned angry. "Shows what those go for nowadays, eh?"

"You can't stay holed up in there. You don't have enough supplies."

"Oh, we're doing all right." Sparrow looked up as someone off-camera stepped into his light, then reached up and accepted a mug with a grin. He took a sip, then gestured into the camera. "Coffee. Want some?"

_That's MY coffee,_ David realized with a jolt.

Apparently that realization translated to his expression well enough, because Sparrow just grinned wider and took another sip. "I suppose not, then. What kind of terms are we talking?"

There had to be a way to take deep breaths without being obvious that one was Taking Deep Breaths to keep from throttling someone, but Corwin hadn't learned that particular command secret yet. "We're negotiating to have the trial here. You'll be kept in our custody in the meantime. On station, not with the Psi Corps."

"The problem with this offer is that it's presupposing that we've done something wrong." Sparrow shrugged. "From my perspective, mate, we're innocents."

"From Earth's perspective, they have the right to come haul you away. We're trying to keep them from doing that without first proving you guilty." He bit his lip. "Hopefully we can use the trial to exert pressure on Earth Alliance against the Psi Corps. But we have to keep you in our custody instead of the Corps', and that means getting you out of there before Bester burns holes in the bulkheads."

"I believe Mr. Allan already came by with a similar proposition," Sparrow said, bored. "Earthforce is so concerned about not blowing holes in things they own."

"We're also concerned about not having bodies on the deck," Corwin said. That got Sparrow's grudging attention. "Bester is on the station now. With a squad of bloodhounds. They're not going to make any deals."

Sparrow nodded at him, but that smug smile didn't go away. "I think we're just fine here, for now--" His head suddenly jerked around, and his eyes went wide. "Holes in the bulkhead!"

Corwin stared. Sparrow ducked out of sight. He could hear nothing on the other end of the line except the patter of feet.

"Sir, they're opening the door!" La'Nad shouted. She grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him back from the wall. The Bloodhounds stepped forward to cover the door, and security officers took up positions behind them. Corwin took a position further back down the hall, wiping his hand off on his pants before pulling out his PPG.

Someone cleared their throat beside him.

He turned to look. Lyta Alexander smiled at him, nodded, and said, "I think you should sleep."

* * *

Norrington let Bester be the first to drop through the hole they'd cut, even though he itched to jump in--partly to get in on the action, partly to try and get between Bester and the telepaths, and partly because he wanted to be the one to put a PPG burst into Sparrow's skull.

But only a little bit, that last one.

Allan followed close on Bester's heels, then another of the Bloodhounds. Norrington forced himself to wait until most of Security and the Bloodhounds were into the telepaths' quarters forming a wedge before he dropped down.

He didn't know what he expected, but the place was clean, well-organized, and empty. The sound of people running echoed everywhere.

"This way," Bester snapped after a moment.

They rushed forward through corridors, past rooms full of hastily-abandoned pursuits. Out to the front of the section, to--

To a corridor full of sleeping Security officers, three Bloodhounds with pained expressions, and Lyta Alexander, standing in the middle of the corridor with glowing eyes.

Allan gasped. "Lyta?"

Lyta paid no attention to them, focusing her glare on Bester. "Go away."

Bester and the Bloodhounds stepped forward. "Lyta," he said. "Don't do this."

"I am doing this, Bester," she said. "Now go--"

He must have hit her with everything, because she gasped and her eyes went dark before she stumbled and went down. Bester winced and rubbed his head as Allan and a couple security officers ducked past to attend to Miss Alexander.

Norrington sighed and holstered his PPG. "Do you know what happened to the rest of them?"

"No," Bester said, wearily. "But I assume they split up to make it harder to find them. When I've recovered we'll start tracking them down. She was going to be the hardest to deal with."

"Well, then. We'll keep her in custody until the rest of them are rounded up." He eyed Bester appraisingly. "She's not just a P5 any more."

Bester looked up at him. "No. She's not."

"I'll want an explanation later."

"So will I, captain," Bester said. He sounded worried, more worried than Norrington really liked to hear. "So will I."


	27. Fall in Flame

Norrington could be excused for forgetting about the Rangers, what with everything else on his mind. So it was something of a surprise when he nearly ran into them outside his quarters.

"Gentlemen?" he inquired, awkwardly holding his identicard out toward his lock.

"Captain," the one who had identified himself as being from Tannier's clan said. "We wished to discuss your... ownership of the denn'bok."

Norrington closed his eyes and counted to ten. If he pulled out his PPG and shot them, he reminded himself, there would be a war. If there were a war, Senator Jayachandran would kill him. If John didn't do it first.

"I'm rather busy," he said, hoping that it would be enough of a brush-off. "Perhaps another time?"

The Minbari stepped forward. "The denn'bok is a sacred weapon. It is my duty as a Ranger to reclaim it."

"I'm sorry, Anla'shok..."

"Koultann," he scowled.

"Anla'shok Koultann," Norrington said. "I'm not inclined to give away my personal possessions to interfering agents of foreign powers, and I'm not prepared to discuss this any further." There, that ought to get him in plenty of trouble, he thought once he recognized what he'd just said. Some diplomat he made.

"Captain," Koultann growled.

"Captain!" Jack Sparrow exclaimed. "I've been looking for you." He grabbed Norrington's PPG and his identicard in a single quick movement, using the latter to open his door and the former to gesture at the three of them. "Inside, all of you."

"Sparrow," Norrington said as he was backed into his quarters. "What do you think you're accomplishing?"

"Negotiations," Sparrow said. "People are always better at negotiating when there's something to negotiate about." He handed Norrington's identicard back and surveyed the three of them, smirking.

Norrington slid his identicard back into his pocket and eyed the telepath warily. "What sort of negotiations? You didn't seem to interested in any of our earlier attempts."

"Ah, but the situation has changed, somewhat, you'll notice."

"Yes," Norrington said. "Your friends are on the run, getting rounded up by Bester. We tried, Sparrow. We tried to find a way out of this, but you brought all the consequences on yourself."

Sparrow just grinned and leveled the PPG at Norrington's chest. "Less talking. I want a ship, and safe passage for my people. Including Lyta."

"She's in security, under sedation," Norrington said.

"Well, we're going to get her and un-sedate her," Sparrow said, "or this station is going to be out one captain and two rangers." He gestured at the Anla'shok briefly.

Koultann's partner moved his hand toward his denn'bok, and then gasped, and clutched at his head. "Ah-ah," Sparrow said. He grinned at Koultann's expression. "Not playing nice, here."

"I see," Koultann said.

Norrington's link chirped.

He looked over at Sparrow. Sparrow sighed and gestured at him with the PPG. Reluctantly, he brought his hand up and activated the link. "Yes?"

"Uh... captain?" it was Corwin. "I've got a bit of a situation."

"What's that?"

He could imagine Corwin's nervous swallow even though it didn't transfer. "I've been taken hostage, sir."

Sparrow was grinning. "By whom?" Norrington asked.

"Two of the telepaths. They... they want to talk to you."

Norrington looked at Sparrow. Sparrow looked back at him. Then he said into Norrington's link, "Well, bring them over, we'll have a party at the captain's place."

There was a long pause. "... sir?"

"Similar situation, lieutenant commander," Norrington said reluctantly. "We may as well consolidate. My quarters."

"Uh, right. Okay, sir."

He closed the link with a sigh. "Satisfied?"

"Not until I'm off this station," Sparrow said. "It's been nice, but we've overstayed our welcome."

"Indeed," Norrington said stiffly.

"Y'see? We've found something we agree on." He gestured grandly with the PPG. "It's that spirit of understanding and cooperation that got the Interstellar Alliance where it is today."

Koultann looked ill. The other ranger rubbed his head and scowled.

Norrington wanted to pace. He restrained himself with an effort of will. Koultann jerked his chin at Sparrow. "What is... this?" he asked.

"The business to which I was referring earlier," Norrington said.

Sparrow frowned and waggled the PPG at the two Rangers. "What did they want?"

Norrington raised his eyebrows at Koultann, who said, "The return of the denn'bok that Captain Norrington possesses."

"You stole a fighting pike?" Sparrow grinned. "Pirate."

"I was given a fighting pike," Norrington nearly growled, "by a Ranger. An old friend."

"Ohh," Sparrow said, "the no-blondes-on-principle Elizabeth girl."

Norrington focused very hard on not grinding his teeth.

His door chimed. Sparrow stared at it for a moment, then grinned and waved in Norrington's direction. "Come," Norrington said. He watched glumly as Corwin was herded in by two of Sparrow's telepaths, Cotton and Anamaria.

A quick, unspoken consultation happened between the telepaths as Corwin shoved his hands in his pockets and looked miserable. Norrington sighed and glared in Sparrow's direction. "So much for the better angels of your nature."

"You're the ones who blew holes in the deck," Sparrow pointed out.

"We can't get them out through the corridors out there; too many Bloodhounds," Anamaria said.

"Hmm," Sparrow said.

Norrington looked back and forth between them. "What?"

Corwin cleared his throat. "The Bloodhounds have already tracked down a number of the telepaths. They're in custody." He glanced at Sparrow. "On sleepers."

"Right," Sparrow said. He pointed at the ventilation screen in the ceiling. Anamaria grabbed one of Norrington's chairs and stood on it, pulling a multitool from her belt and flipping out a hex driver.

"You can't be serious," Norrington said as she made short work of the first screw. "Are you telling me you're going to go through the ventilation system?"

"You have a better plan?" Sparrow asked.

Norrington rubbed at his eyes. "Let me talk to Bester."

"He wants us dead," Sparrow snapped.

"He wants you in custody," Norrington said. "He wants you all re-Psi-Corpsed, whatever that entails."

"He's willing to accept more collateral damage than either of us find comfortable, I'm sure," Sparrow said. Anamaria passed Cotton another screw. "No Bester. He stays out of the deal. What else?"

Norrington crossed his arms. "I can only speak for the station, and Earth. And any way you look at it you're criminals."

Sparrow sighed, exasperated. "Yes, yes, but beyond that."

"You're not getting off this station under your own command, Sparrow," Norrington said. "You're going to wind up in custody. If it's station custody at least we can pull some strings."

Anamaria pulled the cover of the ventilation system free with a slight scrape.

The door chimed again. The telepaths froze, staring, then relaxed. Sparrow gestured with the PPG. Norrington rolled his eyes and said, "Enter."

Another telepath. Gibbs. The apartment was getting crowded. "They got Dhareena and Sigurd," he announced, not sparing Norrington a glance. "What're we going to do?"

Sparrow opened his mouth as if to answer, then craned his neck to look at the Rangers and said, "Give that back."

Koultann started, then reluctantly set the denn'bok back on Norrington's table. Norrington felt a slow thrumming starting to build in his head. He walked over and snatched the pike, glaring at the Ranger, before walking back to his former position.

"Ah-ah," Sparrow said, and held out his hand. "Can't have you walking around with something that dangerous, captain. You might hurt yourself."

Norrington hesitated. "Why not just incapacitate me like you did them?" he asked.

"I need your mind working, mate, if we're getting out of this," Sparrow said. He pointed the PPG as unnecessary emphasis. "Don't worry, I won't break it."

Very reluctantly, Norrington handed him the denn'bok.

"Wonderful." Sparrow nodded to the other telepaths. "Now, here's my plan..."

He stopped speaking. Gibbs looked as though he was going to raise an objection verbally after a few seconds, but he grimaced and continued the conversation unheard. Corwin shivered, slightly.

"It's not gonna work," Gibbs finally said.

"Are you impugning my genius?" Sparrow said, sounding shocked.

"I'm sayin' it's not gonna work," Gibbs said. "It's past mad, Jack!"

"Past mad's precisely where we need to be."

Norrington felt obligated to supply some input. "Harm my station," he said, and got their undivided attention, "and I will kill you."

Sparrow pointed in his direction. "Thank you for your contribution, Captain Norrington. Always nice to know where we stand."

The door chimed.

The telepaths stared at the door, and froze.

"Captain?" Allan's voice.

Sparrow pointed Norrington's PPG at him, giving him a nice view down the barrel into the plasma chamber. _Don't even think it,_ he said, lips unmoving.

There was an agonizing moment when Norrington felt balanced, sharply, on a pinpoint of probabilities, pushed there by Sheridan, by Sparrow, by the responsibilities of command, by his responsibilities to Earth and the innocents under his protection. A point where somehow, if he had done the right thing or said the right thing he could have made everything come out differently. Better.

Then Zack Allan overrode the lock on his door and burst in with four riot-armed security officers, three Bloodhounds, and Mr. Bester.

Jack turned the PPG on the Bloodhounds and Allan and his men turned their rifles on the telepaths, and the Bloodhounds spread out and stared at the telepaths who stared back at the Bloodhounds except for Gibbs and Anamaria who were looking out at Security and at Norrington and Corwin and the Rangers, and Norrington felt... different... slower... thoughts drifting, slow, focusing... the narrowed eyes of the telepaths, the wavering of Jack's PPG... Norrington's PPG... had to stop this, Corwin's eyes drooping, Rangers with hands to their heads... heard somewhere Minbari were naturally more sensitive to telepaths... can't think with this racket... Telepaths at a standoff... no way out of this... no more compromises...

Norrington felt like he was moving in slow motion as he stumbled away from the fight, only half-conscious, only knowing he needed a distraction, needed an unbalancing act, hold them all still, talk this over, get his mind working again; he went to his closet, punched in Elizabeth's birthday, grabbed it, back to the standoff.

The whip made a delightfully clear snap right in front of Sparrow's face.

The mental haze that had lain thick on the room vanished. Norrington wound the whip back into its proper coil as everyone turned and looked at him, the telepaths with distracted and pained expressions.

"Ah," Sparrow said after a moment, "you wouldn't also like rum, would you?"

Bester growled, deep in the back of his throat, and lunged bodily at Sparrow through the ranks of the Bloodhounds. Sparrow avoided him, hopped up onto the chair Anamaria had been standing on earlier, and with a leap shimmied into the open ventilation duct.

Without thinking about it, Norrington dropped the whip and jumped after him.

_That was stupid,_ he thought once he was up in the duct, spotting Sparrow's boots and clambering after him. _I don't know what kind of mass these are rated for. Be a bit embarrassing if I fell through the ceiling in the next quarters over._

He sincerely hoped that behind and below him Zack and the Bloodhounds were rounding up the other telepaths. He'd hate to think that Sparrow was distracting him from a fight that would end up trashing his quarters.

"Sparrow," he said. No response. "Where do you think you're going to go?"

Nothing. Dammit.

_Where is he **going?**_ he wondered after they had spent more than fifteen minutes crawling on hands and knees through scanty industrial lighting. Sparrow wasn't giving any comment. Norrington had tried asking him to give up again, but hadn't gotten an answer.

Finally, after another ten minutes of featureless junctions and tunnels, Sparrow kicked out a maintenance hatch and dropped to the floor. Norrington followed, taking off after him when he got to his feet, frantically reorienting himself by landmarks as he went. _Blue sector,_ he recognized, _Combat prep... **cobra bays...**_

Sparrow tore through the locker room without stopping. Norrington cursed and followed, hoping to bring him down somehow before he got to the bay... but Sparrow ran straight through and over to the fighter loading gantry without stopping.

Cursing, Norrington followed him. Sparrow was already sealing himself into the fighter's cockpit and punching something into the controls. Klaxons started blaring in the bay, warning of imminent depressurization. Norrington slid into the next fighter over, breathing a sigh of relief as the glass sealed around him and the internal lights went green.

Sparrow's fighter was launching.

Feeling naked without his flight suit, Norrington ran through the pre-flight checklist, took a breath, and punched in his launch codes. The world spun and for a moment he faced downward, then the universe changed coordinate systems, out was down, and he was flying.

His ungloved hands were too small for the controls. He spun his fighter hard, ignoring the press of g-forces and the complaints of his inner ear, and found Sparrow, heading for the mass of Epsilon 3. Norrington gritted his teeth and followed, bringing his Starfury's cannons to bear.

"C&amp;C, this is Captain Norrington," he said into the comm, far more calmly than he felt. He lined up his crosshairs on Sparrow's top port-side engine. "I'm tracking Sparrow, who has stolen a Starfury. Aiming to disable, not destroy."

He squeezed the trigger, and Sparrow spun his craft on twin axes, rolling and yawing hard back in a tight loop, straight for Norrington. Norrington sent his 'fury into a forward pitch and missed getting splashed by a hair's breadth, got back on the other craft's tail. Sparrow continued spinning until he was again headed for the planet, and Norrington followed, sprinkling plasma bolts across Sparrow's sky.

"Defensive grid online," he heard from C&amp;C. "Sir, you're both moving out of range. Sir--"

Sparrow executed a perfect sideslip to avoid another volley. "Damn--what?"

"Sir, someone just used command launch codes again. There's another Starfury coming out."

"That would be me, captain," Bester's voice came over the comm. "I figured you could use a hand."

Sparrow was good. Sparrow was very good. He wasn't making any normal flatlander mistakes, and his reflexes were astounding. Norrington was sweating just maintaining a tail. "Mr. Bester. I don't need your help."

"I think you do, captain," Bester said coolly. "Now--"

Sparrow's trajectory changed sharply, and he spun his fighter until he was oriented at Bester, fired a volley, and finished his spin to point back to the planet. They were heading into a closer orbit than Norrington liked, to the point where they were going to start to feel gravity drag if they weren't careful, and atmosphere if they were less careful than that.

Bester hit his afterburners to loop ahead of them. Sparrow pulled away from the planet, playing chicken with the Psi Cop, flipping into the opposite orientation to avoid the fire he was drawing. Norrington grimaced and avoided following him, opting instead to head toward the point of probable impact, giving himself a wide enough berth to avoid any potential explosions. He aimed at Sparrow's engines and squeezed the trigger.

Sparrow avoided the volley handily--and banked until he was flying straight toward Norrington.

Norrington cursed and spun away, hard, down toward atmosphere. Sparrow hugged his trajectory until he was sitting on Norrington's tail, neatly reversing their earlier positions. And Bester followed, seconds behind, shooting off a burst of plasma across Sparrow's exhaust.

Norrington followed a twisting downward path, trying to throw the telepath, but nothing worked. Damn telepathy, damn Sparrow, damn himself for slipping into line-of-sight of a telepath. Bester was firing indiscriminately, now, and Norrington had to fight to keep himself out of the line of his guns. Sparrow was dancing back and forth, thruster fuel be damned, keeping a lock on Norrington's fighter and nimbly avoiding the Psi Cop on his tail. It was admirable, if the most annoying thing in Norrington's life at the moment.

The atmosphere was coming up, fast. Without thinking about it, because thinking would give him warning, Norrington hit his afterburners.

He turned his 'fury nose-up at the last possible moment. The craft wasn't meant for atmospheric maneuvering, but there was one trick he'd pulled off in flight school that his instructors had never forgiven him for.

With a jolt that ground his teeth together, the starfury skipped off Epsilon 3's atmosphere. He yanked back on the control yoke and nearly blacked out, but executed a perfect flip and wound up above Sparrow before the telepath could begin banking. The blue fire he sent through both of Sparrow's starboard engines was really almost gratuitous.

"... Nice shot," Bester said, sounding impressed despite himself.

"Thank you," Norrington said. "Sparrow, prepare to be grappled. We'll return to the station and--"

A searing line of green fire blinked across Norrington's vision for a moment. When he could see again, Bester's Starfury had lost both its top engines and was tumbling toward the atmosphere.

"What--" he exclaimed, then looked up and saw the White Star bearing down on him.

It coasted across his field of view, majestic, and sent a tractor beam toward Sparrow's ship, illuminating it on his tactical monitor in shades of EM radiation. Norrington hesitated for a moment, then turned his fighter and nosedived after Bester, getting his grapple ready to retrieve the crippled ship.

By the time he got Bester's 'fury out of atmosphere, the White Star and Sparrow were both gone.


	28. Touch Softly Down

"... They stole _what?!"_

Captain Norrington shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, tried not to wince, and repeated, "White Star 11, Mr. President."

Sheridan looked back and forth between him and the other assembled persons; Mr. Allan, Mr. Bester, and Lyta Alexander. "I don't believe this."

"Don't worry, captain," Bester said tightly. "We will hunt them down. Bring them to justice."

Sheridan opened his mouth, couldn't bring himself to say 'good', and repeated, "I don't believe this."

"This all could have been avoided," Lyta said from her seat in the corner, "if you'd have allowed us to form a colony."

Lyta was looking surprisingly bright-eyed for someone on a triple dose of sleepers and a half measure of morphozianol. After the telepaths had broken free of Norrington's quarters, they'd sprung her loose and given her an antidote, but she apparently hadn't needed it. She'd broken into C&amp;C, gotten emergency launch clearance for a shuttle to the White Star for the other telepaths, and held everyone in the dome at bay while they made their getaway.

It was all rather embarrassing.

"Acrimony isn't helpful," Norrington said. "The question is, will the Interstellar Alliance assist Earth in its recovery efforts?"

So nice to put it like that, when at the moment he rather felt like asking, "NOW will you send out the Rangers to haul the bastards back in chains?"

Sheridan took a deep breath. "Of course."

"Mr. President--" Lyta said.

"Good," Bester said, cutting her off. "We'll just take Miss Alexander and return to Earth, and coordinate from there."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr. Bester," Norrington said. "Miss Alexander has to remain on Babylon 5."

Everyone, even Sheridan, turned to stare at him. "What do you mean, captain?" Bester said.

"She has diplomatic immunity," Norrington said, "as a representative of the Vorlon Empire."

Dead silence. Lyta's jaw dropped. Mr. Allan was staring as though he'd turned into a Vorlon himself.

Bester stared at him, then forced a chuckle. "Captain. You can't be serious."

"I am serious," he said evenly. "She was given her commission as attache to the Vorlon ambassador on the Vorlon homeworld. She hasn't been a citizen of the Earth Alliance for years."

"But the Vorlons are gone!" Bester snapped.

Norrington raised his eyebrows. "Indeed. For now."

Sheridan was staring at him with something like awe, which would have felt better under other circumstances. Bester was nearly hyperventilating. "Captain. I demand you turn over Lyta Alexander to our custody. This ridiculous claim of yours--"

"You can challenge it, if you'd like," Norrington said. "Through channels. Back on Earth."

Bester narrowed his eyes and stared for a long moment. Norrington stared back.

"Fine, captain," Bester finally said. "Have it your way. I'll go through channels. Mr. President, I'll be in touch." He turned back to Norrington, smiled nastily, and touched his encircled thumb and forefinger to his forehead. "Be seeing you, captain."

When he was gone, Lyta jumped to her feet. "Captain, I--"

"Please," he snapped. Lyta blinked, surprised. "Don't. Where has Sparrow gone?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. He didn't tell me."

"Really, now--"

"He didn't want me coming after him--said it was too dangerous."

She was telling the truth. Or at least, if she wasn't, she was a much better liar than he'd ever met. "All right, then." He turned to Mr. Allan. "Let her go."

"Captain--" Allan started to complain.

"Diplomatic immunity," he said wryly. Allan blinked, then grimaced. "We can't have it both ways."

Lyta smiled at him. "Thank you."

"Thank the Vorlons," he said darkly. "Otherwise I'd have you in the brig for aiding and abetting grand larceny. And I still might, if I can find a way to get away with it."

She blinked, several times. "Oh."

"And if you leave the station, you forfeit your protection and are subject to Earth Alliance law." He watched her swallow that. "Do I make myself clear?"

Lyta nodded. "Absolutely, captain."

"Good."

Sheridan turned his head to watch as Lyta walked out of his office. Then he turned back to Norrington. "Wow."

"Sir," he said, attempting to forestall any more conversation "it's been one hell of a day. If there aren't any other crises I'm going to go back to my quarters and pass out."

Sheridan grinned. "You've earned it." Then he sighed. "Stole a White Star. They're never going to let us live that one down."

"They will," Norrington said, "if we find them and give them twenty years in lockdown for it."

"Ha," Sheridan said. "You know what, captain, I'd rather have Sparrow and his bunch than Bester and his any day."

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, "when next discussing operational policy for the station."

Sheridan smirked. "Right." More seriously, he continued, "Good work, captain. This could have gone a hell of a lot worse."

He blinked. "I don't see how," he admitted. "We lost a White Star, the telepaths have vanished to parts unknown, and we've got a giant hole in Brown Sector."

"But nobody died," Sheridan pointed out. "No civilians were hurt, and you kept Psi Corps off our backs. We'll find White Star 11, like you said. And by that time..." he sighed. "By that time, we may have done something about Psi Corps, back on Earth."

Norrington personally considered that a quite slim possibility.

"Hey, captain," Zack said when they'd both been dismissed. "How about a drink, celebrate the end of this whole thing?"

James had to laugh, just to get the sharp feeling out of his throat. "The end? I'm not sure this is ever going to be over, not without Sparrow in prison or the Psi Corps burning to the Martian soil."

"Yeah, well, sometimes you have to take the little victories," Zack said. "Like Sheridan said, nobody died, sure the teeps got away but they got away from Bester, too. And maybe they'll go found their colony and we can start working on a new era of normal/teep relations."

James looked sideways at Zack and smirked. "You're an optimist."

Zack grinned sheepishly. "Well, living in a place like this? Sometimes you start to believe in miracles."

James looked around as the corridor opened up before him into the Zocalo. The press of people was all around, the sounds of a hundred different languages, the hum of life.

"I do believe I could believe that myself," he said abstractly. Then he smiled. "Zack, I think I'll take you up on that drink."


End file.
